


A Christmas Carol

by Mottlemoth



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Christmas, First Kiss, First Meeting, Ghosts, Greg Lestrade to the Rescue, Happy Ending, Inspired by A Christmas Carol, M/M, Modern Retelling, Mystrade Advent Calendar 2017, Post Break-up, Rampant Feelings, Scrooge Mycroft, Smug Married Johnlock, Young Mystrade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-18 15:35:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 40,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13103229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mottlemoth/pseuds/Mottlemoth
Summary: "All lives end... all hearts are broken."Mycroft Holmes never needed a reason to loathe Christmas—but getting dumped by the love of his life certainly did the trick. It's been a year since Mycroft lost the man he adored, and with Christmas Eve fast approaching, he's counting down the hours until all this festive lunacy is over.Sadly for Mycroft, fate has other plans.It's going to take three ghosts to show him the error of his ways. But can he make amends in time? Or will he prove to himself, once and for all, that caring is not an advantage?





	1. Dumped

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Christmas, guys. It's been an absolute honour organising the Mystrade Advent Calendar for you all, and a delight to see so many people getting involved. I hope you enjoy this final present from me. Festive snugs. x

****Mycroft was dumped, to begin with.

There was no doubt whatever about that.

"You've been dumped, have you?" Sherlock asked, with his usual utter lack of grace, as Mycroft attempted to inform him diplomatically of the situation.

Not that it _was_ a situation, of course.

A _rearrangement_ , perhaps - a cessation of one small part of things, which on the grander scheme would mean very little.

Repressing a sigh into the phone, and reaching for a very large glass of scotch, Mycroft told himself he should have known that Sherlock would be like this. His younger brother was simply incapable of comprehending adult relationships, and always had been. It was no surprise to discover that even _this_ news (not that it was _news,_ of course - it was simply an _informing of the way of things)_ could not be received without drama.

"Sherlock, I have not been - _'dumped'_ , for heaven's sake... it has merely been decided, by mutual agreement, between myself and - "

"Come off it, Mycroft," his brother sighed. "You've been _dumped._ And frankly, it's not before time."

There came the sound of fabric slumping against leather as Sherlock made himself comfortable, no doubt upside down upon the sofa. This was probably the most entertaining phone call he'd received all year.

"Though I will say, a fortnight before Christmas is rather _harsh_ …" Sherlock mused, with great interest. "You must truly have earned it, Mycroft. I wonder what you did."

Sherlock clucked his tongue, pondering.

"Miss your anniversary, did you? No - no, you've done that before… something _new_ this time… something unforgivable..."

"Sherlock..." Mycroft sighed, and reached up to press two fingers between his eyes. Even scotch was not making this conversation any more palatable. "Please do _stop_ this childish attempt to antagonise me. I'm aware that you have trouble navigating the finer points of social engagement, brother mine, so I shall make this very simple. All I request is - "

"Social engagement!" Sherlock said, with a flash of delight. "Remind me, _brother mine…_ of the two of us, which has navigated his way to an engagement _ring?_ That's surely the apex of the endeavour."

Mycroft rolled his eyes, and bit back a retort that John Watson hardly counted as a normal human being.

He withheld, too, his personal doubt that the bonds of wedlock would actually be manifesting at any time soon. Simply put, if John Watson _went_ _ahead_ with this lunacy - and actually _became_ Mycroft's brother-in-law - Mycroft would gladly eat his desk, and all the paperwork inside it too.

Not that one could _say_ such a thing to the happy couple.

It would be over by summer. Mycroft knew it. He knew it like he knew his own name. But for now, he had to smile and congratulate and pretend it was all a delightful idea, and not an injudicious piece of nonsense prompted by overblown romantic sentiment.

Things had gotten out of hand - that was all.

Mycroft already knew what he'd say when he got the phone call. _"DUMPED, is it, brother mine? How unfortunate."_

He could hardly wait.

"Sherlock," he said - layering his tones with the full severity that a long and difficult day had bestowed upon him, following a long and difficult night. "Please repress your juvenile sadism... employ some _tact_ for once… and listen."

He tossed back half the glass of scotch, placed it atop his dresser with a hollow clunk, and said,

"A personal relationship of some length has been terminated. There are tumultuous emotions around, and although they are being processed privately by both parties, you are likely to find yourself in the shallow edges of it. _Please._ If not for my sake, then for - _his._ Be _gracious_ about this. Do not go… _charging_ like a giddy child at the swimming baths straight into the depths of it, and make a fuss. Have I been clear enough? Or do I need to prepare you a Powerpoint presentation?"

Sherlock did not speak for some time.

It was a dangerous sound.

Mycroft stood by the window of his bedroom, looking out across London - little lights in the darkness - as he grew increasingly worried.

"What are you doing?" he snapped, when he couldn't stand the silence anymore.

"Thinking," his brother replied.

 _God preserve my sanity._ Mycroft jerked the curtains shut with a snap.

"About?" he demanded. "Though I wasn't under the impression I'd invited you to _think_ things..."

"You rather make it sound as if _you_ dumped _him…_ though clearly, that's not the case…" Sherlock hummed, curling his way unbearably towards a conclusion. "I think you're rather more mired in these 'tumultuous emotions' than you're letting on, dear brother."

"Oh, for - … Sherlock, _stop this._ It was mutual."

"Mutual?" said the voice on the phone. "What a spectacular euphemism for 'dumped'."

"I have not been _dumped,"_ Mycroft bit out. "We have merely _decided,_ after three years together, that our relationship has no productive future. As a result, it makes sense to - "

"All these words, Mycroft," Sherlock said, coolly. Mycroft stuttered to a halt. It wasn't often anyone dared to interrupt him - even Sherlock. _"'Decided',"_ his brother murmured. _"'Productive'. 'Sense'._ Is the language of the heart still too painful to bear?"

Mycroft ran his tongue slowly across his back teeth; his expression set in place.

"It is not painful," he intoned. "Merely - _unnecessary._ And _unhelpful."_

He crossed to his dresser, snatched up his scotch glass, and returned with it to his drinks cabinet.

The bottle-neck clinked against the rim as he spoke.

"How foreseeable that you're struggling to comprehend this," he said. "An adult decision, taken by two people, based on reason and on what is best. I should have known you'd try to sandblast me with sentiment."

"How do you feel?" Sherlock asked. "This very moment, now."

Mycroft's entire face contracted. "What a _ridiculous_ question," he spat.

"You may be surprised," Sherlock hummed. "John taught it to me. The simplicity of it is often rather illuminating. Now answer. Let's see the truth of things."

Mycroft threw back another finger of scotch.

"Weary," he snapped. "Of _you,_ Sherlock. And your histrionics _._ Tired after my working day, and - …"

_After very little sleep._

"- … and - _exasperated._ Exasperated with this tedious over-dramatising upon which you insist. Concerned, _deeply,_ that you are going to be unbearable to - … _him,_ at a time when he is - ... I am _aggravated,_ Sherlock. I am _aggrieved._ I am _annoyed._ Are we quite finished here?"

"Mm… I think you are, Mycroft. _Entirely_ finished."

"For God's sake." Mycroft readied his thumb on ' _terminate call'._ "I don't expect to hear a word of this again," he snapped. "Ever. Do not be callous to him, Sherlock. Do not - _taunt_ him for your entertainment, like you have me. If you do, I will ruin you."

Mycroft slashed the button, switched off his phone, drank another glass of scotch and went to bed.

As he turned onto his side - tucking himself through habit onto his half of the bed - and slid his hand beneath the pillow, Mycroft's fingers discovered a fabric that was different to the smoothness of his bed linens. He frowned, grasped hold of it, and tugged it out.

A cotton t-shirt.

Darkest grey; loose, and soft.

Comfortable as the Sunday mornings on which it was worn.

Cooking breakfast together, half-dressed. Television - old films - the duvet dragged down to the living room, as if they were students. Mycroft's couch transformed into a nest of warm skin and gentle touch. Those deep brown eyes, so readily drawn to his own. All the things he'd been forgiven. All the things overlooked. Stubble, smoke - three years in a flash.

Mycroft stared at the fistful of fabric in the darkness.

As he began to shake, he told himself - viciously - that caring was not an advantage; that all lives ended; all hearts were broken.

Today, it was simply his turn.

He felt the pain start to overwhelm him, and tried to stop it. He attempted to crush it into nothing, even as part of his soul began to break apart. What had been was now over, he told himself - it was a _fact -_ a fact to which he would have to get used. It was done. It was gone. It would not be his again. One way or another, he would have to continue as if it had never been.

And the grief would die in time.

He just had to ignore it, and it would stop. It would leave him. It would all come to nothing, just like everything else, and there would be peace. He would be quite fine.

Then it occurred to Mycroft what he'd give, to see this shirt worn one last time.

He buried his face gently into the soft grey cotton. He breathed in its smell, and he wept.

 _For him,_ he told himself.

_One last night of sentiment._

_For what it almost was._

 

* * *

 

Three miles away, the door of 221B Baker Street swung open. The pale, raw-eyed man on the doorstep was admitted without hesitation into the arms of Dr. John Watson, who held him in silence as tears began.

"I know," John soothed, rubbing his back. "I know... I'm sorry. I am so, so sorry."

Mycroft Holmes's new ex-boyfriend gripped him, hard. He started to shake. "I - I thought - … I really thought - ..."

"I know… we all did. Come on in… Sherlock's got the kettle on. You'll be alright."

 

* * *

 

The next morning, the grey t-shirt went out with the bin - and Mycroft Holmes returned to his life as it had always been.

He picked it up right where he'd left it three years ago. He dusted off the crumbs of sentiment, cleared the text messages and photographs from his phone, and absorbed himself completely in his work. He'd not been himself, these past three years - far too quick to come home early; to take his allotted annual leave; to leave things for Monday that could more rightly have been done on Saturday.

In a short matter of weeks, the chemical pangs of lost affection began to ebb - and balance was restored to Mycroft's quiet orderly world.

It would have taken less time, had it not been for Christmas.

Adverts on television - sentiment, gratuitously splashed across every possible surface - mandatory time off work. Memories everywhere. The gifts he'd had to return, and what a piteous undertaking that had been. The wallet, the jumper. The aftershave. It mortified him to think he'd looked forward to smelling it on his lover's neck. The photograph frame went back, too - after the photograph within had been removed, shredded, and the shredder immediately emptied.

John and Sherlock asked him to come round for Christmas dinner.

Some misguided attempt at pity.

Some sentimental conviction that he should not be lonely on that day.

As if what Mycroft needed was several hours playing charades with his brother the born-again romantic, and his doting fiancé, and the presence of all their Christmasses yet to come.

As if Mycroft would somehow not be just as lonely the next day - nor the day after that.

In the end, he spent December 25th working. Nobody answered his e-mails.

A few people even had the gall to comment on it in January, when they finally deigned to drag themselves from their families and get back into the office where they should be.

"Not the Christmassy type?" they asked him, eyes twinkling.

 _"'Bah humbug'?"_ they said, with knowing looks.

Mycroft smiled at them thinly, returned their new year greetings with the required amount of civility, and reapplied himself to his work.

The simple truth was... no.

He was not 'the Christmassy type'.

Not now he had been so undoubtedly, indefinitely, irredeemably dumped.

 

* * *

 

The year that passed was productive and unremarkable - as all good years should be.

Mycroft made excellent progress on a number of projects. Without the frequent house guest, and with many more late nights at work, he cut his heating bill by 38%. This was no small achievement for a sizeable Victorian property in central London. In truth, Mycroft had toyed with the idea of selling. The place was in need of some repair - loose banisters, fading wallpaper, the floorboard outside his bedroom upon which he stubbed his toe three mornings out of five - but all of these issues were solved just by being there less often.

Downsizing would take time, effort and care - none of which Mycroft had.

It was far easier just to live with the dust and the ghosts.

In June, to his enormous relief, the political situation with the European Union flared up like a bad case of syphilis - which meant that, _tragically,_ he was unable to attend the wedding.

He missed a magical day, as he was later assured by all those who'd been in attendance. John's speech had by all accounts rather decimated the room, and left Sherlock in a state of affected emotion that Mycroft was entirely glad he'd not had to witness.

Mycroft was subjected to endless soft-hearted relatings of the _emotion_ of it - the _wonderfulness_ of it, the _specialness_ of that most _special_ of special days - and photographs, too - incessant, interminable photographs. Nobody seemed able to resist slapping him in the face with the wretched things, be they printed or emblazoned on a handheld screen. He was forced over and over to cast his crinkled eyes and close-lipped smile across the two of them: his little brother, shining and somewhat shy beside his proud bloody soldier boy - matching ties, buttonhole carnations - and, to Mycroft's dismay, in far too many of the photographs, there was another man: a man whose blue-grey suit, freshly-cut silver hair and happy grin made Mycroft's heart clench unhappily every time he laid eyes on them.

He wasn't wearing the watch Mycroft had given him.

 _Of course he isn't_ , Mycroft sneered at himself, the first time he'd noticed. _Why in hell's name should he keep it?_

Mycroft had not kept the gifts, after all. He'd tried boxing them away in the first stages of his turmoil, suffering under some delusion of strange and preposterous longing that someday there would be an end to their banishment - that they would be restored in a blaze of glory to their rightful places around his home. In the first week of February, he'd had Anthea take the box to a charity shop, with strict instructions not to even contemplate looking in the thing.

And so Mycroft had not been sorry to miss the wedding.

He was not sorry, either, to miss John's birthday dinner in August - nor a halloween fancy dress party in October, for which he was bewildered to receive an invitation - nor, on November 9th, was he able to attend drinks at Baker Street for an event he truly, truly had needed no reminder of.

"Too soon?" Sherlock remarked, as he called to give his apologies.

"Work," Mycroft said, trying to keep the grimace out of his voice. He was sitting in his armchair in his bedroom with scotch, listening to Mahler and trying to pretend an autumn draft was not coming through his casement windows. The thick velvet drapes had kept it at bay last year.

He was not thinking that perhaps the distraction of company had helped.

"You'd be quite welcome, you know," Sherlock's voice said, in his ear. "He specified that you would be. No hard feelings, as I believe the common expression has it."

Mycroft took a moment. He swallowed back the last of his scotch.

"How kind," he intoned. "I am still busy."

"The door will be open, if you find yourself miraculously _un_ -busy..."

Mycroft bit the end of his tongue. "I shan't," he uttered. "Though thank you. How kind. Tell me, Sherlock, how is married life suiting you? It certainly seems to have softened your brain."

"It's never too late to escape our upbringing, Mycroft. It might astonish and appall you to discover, but our childhood was _not_ entirely normal. A few vital lessons were omitted."

"Truly?" Mycroft tutted. "How fascinating. I had simply no idea. Well, Sherlock, as ever I am thrilled that you've been swept off your feet by the most ordinary and featureless man in London. How delightful that he has now installed in you a tiresome tendency towards emotion, too. I'm sure your days are a blur of perpetual domestic joy."

Sherlock hummed.

"How quickly we forget the appeal of 'perpetual domestic joy'," he remarked. "You were rather unbearable for a while yourself, you know... everyone thought it."

Mycroft bit the inside of his cheek.

"A chemical imbalance," he said, coldly. "Now overcome."

Savagery, as satisfying as the first drag of a cigarette, seared inside his chest.

"It shan't last, you know. This... wearisome romantic haze of yours." Mycroft sneered, allowing it to curl his lip back from his teeth. "He will disappoint you before long. His attention will wane, and the novelty of it will fade for him, and the stark reality of life will become apparent to you. It all ends, Sherlock. _All_ of it. It cannot last."

"So you say," Sherlock murmured. "And with what qualification is this statement made? Only… from _this_ end of the phone, dear brother... I'm not sure you're the more knowledgeable of the two of us on this subject."

"Age," Mycroft bit at him, annoyed. "And experience. _Those_ are my qualifications."

"Mm," said Sherlock. "We'll try that one again when it's a marriage certificate. Adieu, Mycroft. I'll give your regards to the birthday boy."

He hung up.

Mycroft had another glass of scotch, stubbed his toe on the floorboard as he went downstairs for another bottle, and slept with three blankets on the bed against the draft.

 

* * *

 

By the second week of November, Christmas was in full swing.

Mycroft could have sworn it used to be in December. Apparently not. It seemed the damned day had been extended by special request to dominate the entire six weeks beforehand, spattering its festive nonsense far and wide across everyone and everything.

Every shop window, every bus and every billboard was screaming about Christmas. Every restaurant was howling for bookings. Every advert on television and online assaulted Mycroft with saccharine reminders about how _important_ it was to spend time together at Christmas, and how _dearly_ someone would love _this_ gift, or _that_ gift, and what a _magical_ time of year it was sure to be.

Soon, Mycroft found himself wincing at every forced glimpse into this world that didn't exist - a world of laughing children, glittering candles and town squares covered in snow and people ice-skating. So far as he could see, this yearly festive fairytale bore no relation to the actual world outside his office window. It had been a bitter and miserable November, rainy from its very beginning, and the darkness of the year was gathering - and yet the rest of the city's population were harping on and on about wretched _Christmas,_ as if any minute now reindeers would come frolicking down the streets and it would be raining mulled wine from the sky.

By the time that December actually arrived, the pageantry of it all was becoming unbearable.

Everywhere Mycroft looked, _Christmas;_ every corner he turned, _Christmas._ Cards began to arrive, and Anthea had to waste a good ten minutes opening the things every morning. People started bedecking their normally professional offices with the usual tinsel and little plastic trees, and asking Mycroft about his _plans_ for Christmas - as if his _plans_ were to do anything else but shoulder the additional weight of work that nobody else was going to be doing. People started asking each other if they'd _finished_ yet. They meant shopping for gifts, and Mycroft knew it - because by this time last year, he _had_ finished - that _damn_ aftershave - the photograph frame - but he'd now started to experience a strange and vicious enjoyment from pretending not to know what people meant. Soon, they stopped asking.

The truth was that Mycroft knew he was becoming foul.

He was turning as hard and sharp as flint; secret, and self-contained; as solitary as an oyster.

But solitary was the only thing that felt good any more.

It was what he liked now: to edge his way along the crowded paths of London, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance. Colleagues had stopped coming to his office, or asking if he'd be at the damned Christmas party. Beggars on the street no longer implored him for change; no man or woman ever dared ask him for directions. He'd started purposefully missing Sherlock's phone-calls.

He couldn't stand another _'John and I'._

Not one more.

 _John and I wondered if you've any plans for Christmas._ (Mycroft had not.)

 _John and I wondered if you're well, in the run-up to Christmas._ (Mycroft was - … fine.)

 _John and I wondered if you'd like to join us at any point before Christmas._ (Mycroft did not.)

And so it was with a mixture of relief, irritation and despair that he finally awoke on the 24th December.

Christmas Eve, at last - and within forty-eight hours, the collective madness of humanity would slump to an end.

Mycroft would be left alone again to his temperate and ordinary life, and everyone would finally stop pretending that the world was quite so marvellous and wonderful.

Come Boxing Day, he thought - as he peeled himself with reluctance from the scant warmth of his bed - things were going to be stupendously different in this city.

He pulled on his old velvet dressing gown to brave the freezing walk to the bathroom, swearing that he would arrange someone to fix the windows in January. This could not continue. None of it could. It was only so long before icicles started forming on the end of his nose.

As he tripped on the floorboard outside his room, Mycroft added a carpenter to the list of arrangements to make - and sent out a prayer, to any deity still listening, that he would be permitted a quiet and uneventful Christmas.

 


	2. Brother-in-Law, Mine

****By eleven AM, Mycroft wondered why some people had bothered coming to work.

His every e-mail bounced back with a cheerful out-of-office reply wishing him a wonderful Christmas. Half of Whitehall weren't even picking up the phone. They were all too busy wandering around in novelty earrings and antlers, from what he could tell. There were open boxes of chocolates everywhere, and unbearably jolly music playing in snatches along the corridors. Everyone but Mycroft seemed to have left their brain wrapped up at home beneath the tree.

Even Anthea had to be retrieved several times from festive wanderings.

Mycroft had noticed immediately that she was far more prone to personal messages on her phone today. He knew which ones were personal because she looked terribly serious while answering them, being careful to mask any hint of a smile. It meant they stood out from her usual, small, professional smirk.

"You are distracted today," he noted, annoyed, as she brought him his two PM coffee. He was surprised not to discover a candy cane poking out of the top of it, or a bloody reindeer face dusted across the surface. "Might I inquire what's so engaging that our mountain of work can wait?"

"I'm sorry, sir," she said, mildly. "I hadn't realised I was distracted."

"You've sent thirty-eight separate personal messages today," Mycroft told her, flatly. "So far - and it is barely the afternoon."

Anthea hesitated, hovering at the corner of his desk as he checked his e-mails yet again. _Send/Receive Complete. No new messages._

"I've been finalising plans, sir. For tomorrow." She paused. "I'm - sorry to have - …"

"If I docked your wages," Mycroft snapped, "for the time taken to type each message, you'd think yourself badly treated, wouldn't you? And yet apparently it's fine for our budget to foot the bill."

His assistant raised a slender eyebrow, saying nothing.

Mycroft glowered at her over his laptop. He knew he was being vile, and he didn't care. He reached for his coffee.

"Has Simpson sent the Webb-Lawrence documents yet?" he enquired.

"No, sir," she said. "I checked, but I'm afraid he's occupied as it's Christmas Eve."

Mycroft frowned. _A poor excuse._

"And what about an update on the Reynolds matter? Have New York finalised their official response yet?"

"No, sir," she said. "I asked, but they say it's Christmas Eve."

Mycroft bit his tongue. "And have you spoken to Andrew Collins regarding his deal with the Gardner group? The man's had three days. He should have closed it by now."

"I did, sir."

"At _last,"_ Mycroft said, despairing. "Some progress. What did he say?"

She visibly bit the side of her cheek. "He… said it's Christmas Eve, sir."

Mycroft resisted the temptation to plant his face into his keyboard. He snapped shut the lid of his laptop, sat back in his chair with a squeak, and drank three inches of scalding coffee until some semblance of calm had returned.

In the time that it took, Anthea dealt with a phone-call outside at her desk.

She reappeared in his office, looking confused.

"Mr. Holmes, you... have a _visitor,"_ she said.

Mycroft glanced at the day's schedule, printed beside his laptop. There was nothing at two PM. There was very little all day, in fact - people had proved as resistant to meeting on Christmas Eve as they were to answering his e-mails, picking up the phone or doing any bloody work.

And now it seemed one of them had inexplicably turned up in person.

"Who is it?" he demanded.

His assistant checked the note she'd scribbled for herself. "He said his name is... 'John Watson-Holmes', sir. He's claiming to be your brother-in-law."

Mycroft stared at her, wondering if the universe were torturing him to some end or just for fun.

After a while, supposing he had no good reason to turn the man away, he muttered,

"Tell security to make the usual checks."

 

* * *

 

It was a good fifteen minutes before Dr. Watson was admitted to the inner sanctum of Mycroft's office. He'd made it through the extensive security procedures in a remarkably good mood, and arrived before Mycroft's desk with a smile, still ruddy-cheeked from the cold, wearing a sweater beneath his coat that was emblazoned with a genial snowman. Mycroft had never hated a piece of knitwear so much on first sight.

"Mycroft," Dr. Watson said, brightly - and stepped forward, offering his hand across Mycroft's desk. "Merry Christmas."

This was not going well, Mycroft thought.

He repressed a sigh, ignored the hand, and intoned,

"What might I do for you, Dr. Watson?"

The man's face shifted slightly - but the smile didn't fade. To Mycroft's concern, he sat himself down in the chair.

"C'mon, Mycroft..." he said. "Been six months now... surely I'm allowed the second half."

Mycroft's brow creased. "The _second half?"_

Dr. Watson raised an eyebrow. "... of my surname."

Mycroft made a quick mental check, before realising. He kept himself from rolling his eyes, and turned the expression instead into a tight smile.

"Forgive me," he said, sleekly, turning a pen between his fingers. "Force of habit. And what may I do for you?"

And the man was still smiling, Mycroft thought - not the guarded, humourless, business-like smiles that usually came at him across this desk. The man seemed genuinely happy about something. Mycroft could imagine there were shopping bags being kept for him somewhere downstairs - wrapping paper, and gifts, and all the other nauseating accoutrements of the season.

He wondered briefly what Dr. Watson was gifting to his brother.

Something mawkish no doubt. It was probably engraved with their initials, whatever it was. _Bah, humbug._

"Just happened to be on my way past," Dr. Watson said. "Thought I'd pop in, see how you are... wish you a merry Christmas."

This was a lie, Mycroft thought. He wasn't immediately certain _how_ it was a lie - or towards what purpose the lie was meant to function - but he knew there must be more to it than that.

Nobody in the world just _'popped in'_ to wish Mycroft Holmes a merry Christmas.

"How kind," he intoned, reading Watson's face with care. "I fear you've been subjected to rather a lot of security searches, for the sake of a brief social call…"

"Not a problem," the wretched man said. "I, ah… brought your Christmas card. Your security team say they'll have finished checking it for explosives by February."

 _Humour_ , Mycroft noted, raising an eyebrow. _What the devil is this game?_

He sat back in his chair, crossed one leg over the other, and continued to turn his pen.

He waited - and at last, with a smile of surrender, Dr. Watson had the decency to explain himself.

"We... wanted to ask you to Christmas dinner," he said. "Tomorrow. Me and Sherlock."

Mycroft almost laughed. _Christmas with the newly-weds!_ The thought of it! He might as well retire immediately to Bedlam.

"How kind," he bit out. "I'm afraid I have plans."

Dr. Watson's eyebrows lifted. "... really?"

Mycroft immediately took offence. "Yes, _really,"_ he snapped. "I will be unavailable throughout the day. Thank you for the offer."

Dr. Watson paused. "And… what are you doing?" he asked.

Mycroft felt his eyes narrow to slits. He clicked his pen down onto the desk.

"I will be occupied," he said. "The entirety of the day. But thank you. How terribly kind."

Dr. Watson wasn't taking the hint. He gave Mycroft a look of patience and pity and kindness, enough to raise every single hair on the back of Mycroft's neck.

"C'mon, Mycroft," he said, gently. "Come for dinner. Don't be proud."

 _"Proud?"_ Mycroft couldn't believe his ears. "You think I'm disinclined to your company because of _pride?_ I am declining your offer, Dr. Watson, because I am _not available._ Pride has _nothing_ to do with it. I celebrate Christmas in my own fashion, and I do not expect to be pitied at my desk for it."

"But - you _don't_ celebrate it."

"Then kindly permit me to do that."

"It's Christmas, Mycroft. It - doesn't have to be like this. You don't have to be on your own. I know you've got - bad memories of this time of year, but you don't have to be miserable."

Mycroft felt himself bristle at once, knuckles whitening at the edge of his desk.

"What _else_ can I be," he demanded, "when I live in a world of fools? _'Merry Christmas'!"_ he spat, in derision. "If I could have my way, Dr. Watson, every idiot who goes about spewing _'Merry Christmas'_ would be boiled with his own pudding and buried with a stake of holly through his heart."

Dr. Watson's expression folded. "You don't mean that."

"I assure you, I do." Mycroft got up from his desk, too angry to sit any longer. He strode across to the shredder, snatching up files as he went. He should have done these hours ago. There was work to be done. "What's Christmas," he demanded, as he crammed the first fistful of papers into the slot, and the machine whirred noisily into life, "except a time for people to spend money they do not have, on things they do not need - to express sentiments they do not feel? A time for people to find themselves a year older, and not another scrap more successful."

"Life's - not about being _successful,_ Mycroft. Nor is Christmas. It's - about being happy."

 _"Happy,"_ Mycroft breathed. The very word froze his blood to the bone. He fed another classified document into the shredder, watching with savage satisfaction as it was munched and curled and crinkled into slithers. "What scientific connection is there between December 25th and being happy? Answer me that. Some arbitrary date - meaningless - an accident of the early Christian calendar, and yet we are all expected to click our heels, put on our ridiculous jumpers, scamper along to dinner and be so very, very _happy..."_

Dr. Watson looked down at his hands, his expression crumpled.

"It's a good _excuse_ to be happy," he offered. "If you've not got a better one."

Mycroft wished he could believe it was a jibe. Some viciousness.

But it wasn't - it was meant in kindness.

It only made him hate it more.

"I _am_ happy," he intoned, in a voice of blistering ice.

"Then… come be happy with your family," Dr. Watson said. "Come join me and Sherlock for dinner."

Mycroft stiffened. _Family._ The word bolted down his spine, sickly and awful. It was the final straw.

He straightened up from the shredder, and turned to face the unbearable man.

"Why did you marry my brother?" he demanded, regarding him with contempt.

Dr. Watson smiled, gentle-eyed and bewildered. "Because I... fell in love, Mycroft."

"Because you fell in _love,"_ Mycroft sneered. He found himself revolted. "That's the only thing in this world more ludicrous than _'Merry Christmas'."_

Dr. Watson simply smiled - persistent, patient, and willing.

"Come round for dinner," he said again. "We've got a black forest yule log - from the bakery you like. The one near your flat."

Mycroft stared into his eyes, feeling his heart clench.

_The bakery._

Mycroft hadn't set foot in the place until - … _him._

He'd spotted the shop on the very first weekend that he'd stayed. Dragged Mycroft in by the hand - gazed with those big brown eyes around the delicate tiers of cupcakes and cream cakes and buns, gateaux and swiss rolls and battenberg.

Two Christmasses ago, they'd sold mille-feuilles filled with St. Honoré cream, dusted with icing sugar like fresh snow - pear and caramel cupcakes - a praline gateau that the two of them had shared on Christmas Day.

Mycroft had gained nearly seven pounds in a fortnight.

He'd not cared in the slightest.

He hadn't been in the place since. He'd not even let his eyes drift to it on the street. He'd driven past each day as if the bakery simply did not exist - as if there were a blistering, burning hole in the line of shops, smoking slightly where a meteor had obliterated the lot.

_Why did you marry my brother?_

_Because I fell in love._

When Mycroft managed to speak, it was in a new voice - no longer the sharp, crystalline voice of ice that he so dearly longed to use in this moment - but in a voice much older, much quieter, and as final as a full-stop.

"I will not be joining you for Christmas, Dr. Watson."

He watched his answer settle in the man's eyes at last. He watched the sigh start to form, as Dr. Watson finally gave up on him.

"But thank you," he intoned, as cold as the concrete outside on the road, as his brother-in-law rose from his chair. "How kind of you to offer."

"You... know where we are," Watson murmured. "If you change your mind."

Mycroft's heart blackened a little further.

"I will not," he said. It was the only certainty in this world. "Good day, Dr. Watson. I shall have Anthea show you out."

 

* * *

 

By five o'clock, most of the building was empty. It seemed that only Mycroft and Anthea remained. It was their usual custom to work until at least six PM - but her increasingly sullen silence, augmented by a breathtaking headache for Mycroft, finally forced him to give up.

"You'll want all day tomorrow, I suppose?" he muttered, as they pulled on their coats.

She visibly bit her tongue. "If it's convenient, sir."

"It's not convenient," he snapped. "But as I'm the only person who seems to know that, my hands are rather tied, aren't they? Be here early on Boxing Day. There will be a great deal to catch up on."

She said nothing as she switched off the lights, filed in silence from the room, and waited for Mycroft beside the security doors.

As he punched in the code to lock the place down, he wondered if she were expecting something. Many of his colleagues had chosen to bestow bottles of wine or other gifts upon their assistants - rewards of some kind - rewards for being present and still in employment upon an arbitrary date.

He'd rather hoped that Anthea knew him better by now.

If the girl wanted patting on the head for no good reason, she should get herself another job.

"Mr. Holmes?" she said at last, as the security doors slammed and Mycroft entered the usual string of codes to set the alarms.

"What is it?"

"I - hoped I could ask something."

 _Heaven help me, what is it now?_ "Ask swiftly," he said. "We are about to leave. You have left this far too late."

"I… wondered if I could take Boxing Day as well. Off work, I mean."

Mycroft nearly swallowed his tongue. "Why?" he demanded. "Will a single day's monumental backlog not be enough for you? Are you so eager to double our workload on the 27th? No. Of course you cannot."

She held her nerve. "I - wanted to spend some time with David, sir."

"Who in God's name is _David?"_

She bit the inside of her cheek. "My husband."

Mycroft stared at her. "You are not married."

One pencilled brown eyebrow arched. "I am, sir. In September. The week I requested? You weren't able to authorise the time-off. I returned to work on Monday as normal."

Mycroft frowned, unsettled. "We were greatly occupied at that time."

"I know, sir. But it's now our first Christmas, and I… feel it would be disloyal of me, if I didn’t at least ask. It would be only two days, Mr. Holmes."

Mycroft's stomach twisted with discomfort.

"No," he said, flatly. "It isn't feasible."

"Will there really be that much of a backlog?" she pushed. "You've hardly had any response to your messages _today_ \- let alone on Christmas Day."

Mycroft snapped.

"I said _no,_ for heaven's sake. I'm not accustomed to saying it twice. You'll be here on the 26th as previously arranged. And, if it's _convenient,_ I expect you not to waste the entirety of _that_ day on your unimportant personal life."

Without a word, she held out his umbrella to him.

Mycroft snatched it from her, turned, and walked away.

 _Let the silly girl sulk,_ he thought. She should not have gone into politics if she was going to prioritise her personal life. He would also need to have this supposed husband surveyed and security-checked - yet another addition to his post-Christmas workload.

His car was waiting for him on the road outside.

Mycroft got in, slammed the door and unwound his scarf, annoyed.

"To the club, sir?" the driver asked.

"Yes." Mycroft checked his phone - a bloody voicemail from Sherlock.

With a roll of his eyes, he deleted it unheard.

A protest, no doubt, that Mycroft had been unaccommodating towards his beloved. Unwelcoming. _Rude._

Mycroft did not care.

Let the whole world whimper on about him about Christmas, and how dreadful he was - how cruel, how uncaring. It would be January soon, and they would all slump back into misery with him.

Then they would see.

 

* * *

 

The club, at least, provided some shelter from the raging tide of Christmas. A few small festive additions had been placed in certain rooms, but nothing one couldn't easily ignore.

Mycroft found himself starting to unwind as he sat by the fire, breathing in the silence.

Nobody here expected him to be happy. Nobody gave a fig if he were alive or dead. It was reassuring, somehow, not to be cared about. He read all the newspapers, took his usual melancholy dinner and beguiled the rest of the evening balancing his personal accounts on his phone, then summoned his driver to collect him.

It was almost ten PM.

As the car turned at last into Mycroft's street, he felt his phone stir in his pocket. He pulled it out, wearily.

_Please do reconsider. SHW._

Something about the simplicity of it - the gentleness of it - set Mycroft's teeth on edge at once. Four hours of peace and solitude vaporised in an instant.

He typed back, angrily.

_How many times must I tell you I am busy? Leave me alone for pity's sake. M._

Sherlock’s reply buzzed inside his coat as the car pulled to a stop.

"Goodnight, Mr. Holmes," said the driver, genially. "Merry Christmas."

Mycroft bit back his vicious reply. He swept out of the car without a word and slammed the door, reading the new message as the black Audi pulled away into the night.

_You would be very welcome. It’s never too late to change. SHW._

"For the love of…" Mycroft muttered. He began typing an ascetic reply. _I'll show you 'too late to change',_ he thought. _I’ll show you it in spades, brother mine._

"... Mycroft?" said a voice.

The world - and everything that it contained - came to a stop.

It simply ended. In the space of a second, everything that was moving stopped moving; everything that made noise fell silent. The lights all went out, and the wind ceased to blow. The seasons stopped. The sun would never rise. Mycroft's heart turned to rock inside his chest.

He looked up from his phone, stricken by the sound of his name.

And there he was.

Old black jeans; a leather jacket. A crisp white shirt and a grey-blue scarf - soft, hand-knitted, tucked snug around his neck to fight the cold.

Those big brown eyes.

He looked like he'd stepped straight from Mycroft’s memory, pure and unsullied - as perfect as he'd always been - gorgeous, happy and easy. And yet here he was: as real as the nails in Mycroft’s front door.

He came quietly down Mycroft's steps, hands tucked in his pockets.

Mycroft couldn’t breathe.

"What are you doing here?" he heard his mouth demand. He couldn't recall giving it permission to speak. Despair coursed through his veins as palpable and uncomfortable as sudden heat. He couldn't take his eyes away.

Greg Lestrade gave a small smile; he braced himself with a breath.

 


	3. Expect The First Ghost

****"Just delivering your card," Greg said. "Only put it through the door a second ago..."

_Card?_

It took Mycroft several seconds to realise he meant a Christmas card, not a business card.

He hadn't expected to receive one.

"I see," he said, and nothing else. His brain would not function. The words would not come.

Greg came to stand on the pavement with him, looking uneasy but with a valiant smile. He was doing his best to make this comfortable. It made Mycroft's heart feel instantly as fragile as a sugar sculpture. He kept the sensation ferociously away from his face, and affected what he hoped was a look of disinterest.

"Sorry it's last minute," Greg said. "I… didn't know if I should or not, to be honest. But in the end, I thought…" He hesitated, glancing away along the street. It was bitterly cold. "For memory's sake."

Mycroft swallowed.

Inside his house, sitting on his doormat, was something that Greg had touched - something Greg had written and brought here for him; brought by hand to put through his door - some fragile piece of paper Greg had held, inked a message on, sealed and left for Mycroft.

Mycroft didn't know if he wanted to burn it into ashes unopened, or hold the thing until it turned to dust.

"How are you?" he asked, unsure what else he could possibly say. It came out colder than he'd meant; but there was no softening it now he had spoken it.

"Fine," Greg said. He hesitated. "Not much new, really... working, most of the time." He paused, reaching inside his jacket. Cigarettes appeared. "D'you still - ?"

"No," Mycroft said, stiffly. "Thank you."

He watched Greg light a cigarette. He wished he hadn't caught the slight shake in the man's hand.

"How are you?" Greg asked, and Mycroft wondered how in the name of every angel and saint in the sky he was supposed to even _begin_ answering that.

"Fine," he heard himself say. He scrabbled for some detail to add. "Work is - greatly busy. As ever."

Greg said nothing for a moment, smoking. His gaze became a little guarded. Work had caused most of the few disagreements they'd ever had - right up until the end.

"Good," Greg said, at last. He paused. "Glad you're busy. How's Anthea?"

"Fine," Mycroft said. He scrabbled again for details. "She's - married. September."

 _Apparently,_ he added to himself.

Something quiet crossed Greg's face. He smoked to cover it, then said, "That's great. Was it a good day for them?"

Mycroft took a moment to realise. "I - did not attend."

"Oh." Greg dragged on his cigarette. "You missed a good - … back in June. John and Sherlock."

Mycroft's heart seemed to be attempting to wrench itself inside out.

"Yes, I… I heard." He hesitated, swallowing again. "I understand that it all went smoothly. That they were pleased."

"They were," Greg said. He smiled - trying to make himself brave, Mycroft thought. Trying to be nice. "It was really good to see. You should've come."

Mycroft looked at him, heart heaving.

That face.

The face he had loved.

He'd once been allowed to cradle that face in his hands. Those deep, beautiful eyes had been his to gaze into, and his alone. He'd been permitted to kiss those lips whenever he wanted them. All he'd ever had to do was reach out a hand for comfort, for company, for closeness, and there Greg had been. _Always_ there. It had all been so easy.

And now it was gone - gone like it had never happened.

Mycroft hadn't been able to bear the thought of the wedding for one reason, and one reason alone.

The reason had been Greg.

Greg, smiling, handsome in a suit. Friends, family and happy faces at every turn. A beautiful room in a beautiful hotel, flowers and laughter and togetherness, and happily ever after, and rings exchanged with promises of love. Love, without end.

_It should have been us._

_It should have been the two of us._

"What're your plans for Christmas?" Greg asked, like they were strangers on the street.

Mycroft swallowed the shattered remnants of his heart.

"I - shan't be - …" Part of him suddenly wished with all his soul that there _were_ plans - some magnificent gathering he could casually mention, and prove that he was alright - that the vacancy Greg had left was now filled, filled to bursting with friends and company and affection. He didn't want Greg even to glimpse the gaping, hollow emptiness that laid within as a monument to what was gone. Mycroft had allowed it to stay just as it was - unable to bear it, unable to look at it, unable to do anything but honour its emptiness and stay as far as he could away from it. It would always be there. It would never heal.

There were no plans that he could mention. There was nothing that had replaced Greg.

There was nothing in the world had come close.

"A - quiet Christmas," he managed at last. That seemed the sort of thing to say. "Rest. Time off from work."

Greg drew on his cigarette, quietly. He nodded.

"And - yourself?" Mycroft asked him, forcing nonchalance - as if he truly could not care.

"Work," said Greg. He smiled awkwardly. "Twelve hours. Right through until eight. It's - … I can't bear making someone with a family work that shift. Not on Christmas Day. I'd rather work it myself."

 _How like you,_ Mycroft thought.

"Thought you'd be with Sherlock and John," Greg said, and blew a little smoke from the side of his mouth.

Mycroft looked at him, lost. "Why?" he asked.

Greg hesitated. "Well… family," he said.

"Oh." Mycroft paused. "I - prefer my own - … and it is their first Christmas," he added, seizing upon the idea of some kind of nobility - giving the couple space - privacy in their togetherness. It was what he'd always craved with Greg. Locking the door on Friday evening, not unlocking it until Monday morning. It had been the finest of feelings. "I have decided not to intrude. I'm sure they'll be quite relieved, not having to entertain."

Greg smiled, looking down at his cigarette.

"Myke..." he said, quietly.

Mycroft's heart squeezed itself tightly. "What?" he heard himself say, and immediately hated the fragility in his own voice - how lost he sounded - how weak. He sharpened it on purpose. "Has my consideration amused you?"

Greg said nothing for a moment, his eyes still downturned. He flicked the ash from his cigarette into the gutter.

"Just a shame," he murmured. "Seeing you isolate yourself."

"I was - _unaware_ that I was doing so."

"No?" said Greg. He bit his lip. "Am I the last person you'll lay eyes on 'til Boxing Day?"

Mycroft hesitated. He covered his flush with an imperious lift of his chin, and regarded Greg with contempt.

Greg's smile quietened.

"There's no need, you know," he said. He returned the cigarette to his mouth. "You don't - have to feel awkward. You should come along to things when Sherlock asks. I'm not - cut up anymore, Myke. I'm okay. You don't have to avoid our friends just because you - … just because it ended."

Mycroft's throat contracted.

"I am not _avoiding_ anyone," he said. "I am merely busy. I haven't time for... _social engagements."_

Greg said nothing for a moment. He closed his eyes, pulling smoke into his lungs.

"Alright," he murmured. His voice was oddly quiet. After a second, he said, "Just go see your brother from time to time, will you? It's… the only thing that matters in the end. Other people."

Mycroft curled his fingers silently into his palms.

"All lives end," he told Greg. "All hearts are broken." He couldn't bring himself to soften it. It was the only truth he knew, and the only truth that he would ever know. "Other people are a poor investment of one's time and care."

Greg gave a pained smile. He blew a column of smoke into the darkness.

"You've not changed, Myke," he said at last. "Not one bit."

Nobody had called Mycroft 'Myke' in over a year.

It hurt.

"I hadn't realised there was an expectation that I _would,"_ he muttered.

Greg's eyes flickered. "Of course you didn't." He dropped the cigarette to the ground, squashing it out beneath his foot. "You should be careful, you know."

"Careful?" Mycroft asked, with a slight sneer.

"Locking yourself away on Christmas." Greg's eyes flashed - some brave attempt at humour. "You'll end up visited by three ghosts."

"Three... _ghosts?"_ Mycroft was missing something. "What on earth - ?"

Greg leant back slightly. In the manner of a theatrical prophecy, with his eyes wide and his fingers wiggling, he exclaimed,

_"You will be haunted by Three Spirits… expect the first ghost when the bell tolls one!"_

Mycroft stared at him in amazement.

Greg cracked a smile, hesitant. The finger-wiggling stopped.

"Christmas Carol?" he said. His smile faded. "You know… with the muppets?"

Mycroft had neither read nor watched an adaptation of Charles Dickens's seminal work - possessing neither the time nor the inclination towards fiction - though he imagined the man was now spinning in his grave at this assignation of credit to the muppets.

He raised an eyebrow, saying nothing.

Greg smiled to himself.

"Forget it," he said. "You'll - … it's - … never mind. I'd better go."

Mycroft's heart lurched.

 _Don't go,_ he heard it cry.

He bade it to be silent. There was no point in longing. There was no sense in being ruled by small and painful things.

"Have a good Christmas," Greg said, as he eased his hands into his pockets. "I'll - see you in the New Year, maybe. Don't be a stranger."

 _Don't go. Don't go, don't go._ Mycroft clamped down on it, hating it. His throat thickened. He couldn't speak.

"Bye, Myke," Greg said.

He turned.

Quietly, he walked away.

Mycroft watched him the full length of the street. He watched until Greg was just a small point of movement far away - that familiar steady walk, hands in his pockets and head down. He watched until Greg had turned a corner, and was gone, and there was nothing left of him to watch.

In silence, Mycroft let himself into the house.

The card laid on the doormat in the dark. Mycroft picked it up at once - not caring for the lights, nor for the knees of his trousers on the dusty tiles as he knelt. Gently he tore open the envelope. With shaking hands, he eased free the card.

A snow-dusted street; houses, children playing, building snowmen. Father Christmas and his reindeer sailed unnoticed through the deep night sky overhead.

It was a painless, inoffensive scene.

Mycroft gazed down at it in the dark.

There were no lovers kissing; there were no broken hearts. It was just a quiet world full of Christmas, full of nothing, other people's houses with the lights on brightly and their children playing out in the street.

It looked much like the world Mycroft had occupied for a year now.

Other people, he thought - their happy, unreachable lives - their houses lit up at night as his car drove past - the world moving on, and Mycroft sitting apart from it, gazing at it, never quite sure why he couldn't have that.

Because it was a fairytale, he told himself.

As unreal as a painted Christmas card.

Even the most loving marriages ended in death. Even the happiest lives came to an end.

Numb, Mycroft opened up the Christmas card. Heat burned in his eyes as he realised he'd even missed that handwriting - that easy slope - the sight of words that had been created in Greg's mind, written while thinking of Mycroft. He'd missed them dearly.

_Dear Myke - all the best for christmas and the new year. Have a good one. From GL._

It was kind, Mycroft thought.

Kind and empty.

There was nothing there to hurt him; nothing there to cause him pain. Just good wishes. Mild. Unobjectionable.

The sight of them pierced him with more agony than if he'd opened the card to find abuse. A list of his faults, he thought - a summary of everything he'd ever done wrong. All the reasons Greg had pulled away, all the reasons it had changed. The kindness hurt far more.

He couldn't bear the neutrality of those gentle words.

As if it hadn't happened at all.

As if he hadn't once opened Christmas cards to find long, happy paragraphs - that easy, loopy handwriting, trailing lovingly across the card like yarn. _Dear Myke, second christmas… can't believe it. What a crazy year we've had! How have you put up with me? Somehow… I'm just so glad you do… I can't wait for Dublin in February. I'll try not to get us lost like in Edinburgh, what a disaster. Thank god at least one of us can read a map huh? I love you to pieces gorgeous. Thankyou for an amazing year and all the memories. Hope you're ready to be spoiled. Presents!!! Love from your Greg… xxxxxxxxxx_

In the darkness, kneeling on his doormat, Mycroft's fingertips brushed the carefully inked sentiment.

No kisses. No memories. No pouring forth of affection.

Just kindness, as gentle as death.

Half an hour later, wrapped in his dressing gown, Mycroft approached his mantelpiece in silence.

There were no cards displayed there. He'd had but a small handful turn up at his home - extended relations, the odd ex-university friend. He'd read them, noted with disinterest the standard festive greetings, then placed them neatly in the recycling. He hadn't wanted the things cluttering up the place. Causing dust. The same with decorations - who would see them? What was there to decorate? What was there to celebrate here? It was a waste.

Mycroft gazed at the empty length of his mantelpiece, holding Greg's card in his hands.

He swallowed.

He imagined the card sitting there, pride of place, and felt his heart sting with longing.

Nobody would know, he thought. Nobody would see this awful, tiny act of grief. It could sit there for a day, and he would take the time to look at it and mourn, cradled here in the darkest nights of the year, then take the thing down before Boxing Day could dawn. Nobody would know. Nobody would come to laugh that he'd been dumped by Greg Lestrade, and that it hurt him more than ever. He could sit here in the silence, in his solitude, and grieve in safety where nobody could see. _That would be alright,_ he thought. _If none were there to know._

And then he asked himself what the point would be - what he hoped to gain - what he thought that allowing himself to care would possibly change.

He decided it would come to nothing.

Like all else in his life.

He tore the card into pieces before he had time to rethink - before he could sink any deeper into this childish, reasonless nonsense. He tore the pieces quietly into pieces. He tore them gently smaller and smaller, until they were nothing.

He'd worked hard for a year. He'd been strong, and self-sufficient, and he'd done well. It was unfortunate that Greg Lestrade had chosen this night to appear. It was unfortunate that Mycroft had questioned his resolve.

But he wasn't going to undo a year's growth in one evening, by entertaining some pitiful urge towards sentiment.

Mycroft placed the scraps in the recycling, and turned out the lights.

It was barely eleven o'clock, and there was work he could be doing - but he found himself suddenly exhausted. The emotion he'd undergone, the fatigues of the day and the lateness of the hour all seemed to slump upon Mycroft at once. He decided to give up on this miserable Christmas Eve. It had been too much, and he was glad it was over. Tomorrow would be easier.

He went straight up to bed, laid himself across it in his dressing gown, and was asleep within an instant.

 

* * *

 

When Mycroft awoke, it was so dark that - looking out of bed - he could scarcely distinguish the window from the walls of his bedroom.

He groped blindly for the bedside cabinet and his mobile phone. Finding nothing, he realised with a stifled sigh that he'd left the thing downstairs in his coat. He had no idea what time it was.

He then heard, out in the darkness on the landing, the old grandfather clock begin to strike the four quarters. Mycroft waited, listening for the hour.

As the clock struck seven, eight and then nine, he began to wonder.

It couldn't possibly be that late in the morning yet. There was no sign of the sun. He listened, bewildered, as his clock struck a further three times - and then stopped.

Midnight _._

He'd slept for only an hour - but it felt like it had been days.

It wasn't possible. The damn thing must be wrong, Mycroft thought. _Midnight._ It couldn't possibly have just become Christmas Day.

He found himself so unnerved that he got out of bed, stubbed his toe on the usual floorboard, and limped downstairs through the darkness to his coat. He fished his phone from the pocket, annoyed.

He unlocked it with a squinting scowl.

 _00:03_ _  
_ _25th December 2017_

Mycroft sighed, rubbed his eyes, and returned to bed. He laid in the darkness and thought, and thought, and thought until he'd almost convinced himself that he was on the brink of sleep again - at which point the grandfather clock reminded him of the passage of time, and woke him up. Soon fifteen, then thirty, then forty-five minutes had passed. It was almost one in the morning, and Mycroft could no sooner get to sleep than get to Heaven.

At last, the chiming of the hour broke upon his ear.

He listened to it, weary - twinkling, gentle in the silence as it prepared him for the announcement of the time. Then, with a deep, dull, hollow and melancholy boom, the grandfather clock declared that it was one AM.

Light flooded the room.

Mycroft sat up at once. His brain lurched with panic as the sudden flash of light began to ebb, and he sought around his room for the source of it, squinting in the glare and covering his eyes.

There was a figure standing at the end of his bed.

Mycroft scrabbled for the nearest thing to throw. His panic-stricken fingers found a bedside lamp. He wrenched at it. The cord jerked, snapped tight - and a bright, boyish laugh rang straight to Mycroft's heart.

He squinted through the fading light.

It was _Greg._

He was standing there as if he'd been waiting for this moment all night - jeans, scruffy-haired, a gaudy scarlet jumper sequinned with a holly-topped pudding.

Mycroft's mouth fell open.

 


	4. Your Welfare

****"Greg, what… what in God's name are you _doing?"_

Mycroft could scarcely believe his eyes.

"You - … how did - … why are you in my _house?"_

Greg beamed, as bright-eyed and happy as a robin. He looked younger. His hair was darker; his face was smoother. A youthful grin gleamed in his deep brown eyes.

"Relax, gorgeous," he said. His voice echoed curiously in the light that glittered around him, white and clean and pure. He sounded as if he were far away. "It's not what you think."

 _This is it,_ Mycroft thought. _It has happened._

_I have gone insane._

_My brain has shattered under the unbearable weight of my own miserable existence, and I am now a lunatic._

"What do you want?" he demanded. He realised he was panting slightly. "Why are you in my room?"

Greg's eyes shone with amusement. "Your welfare," he said.

"My _welfare?"_ Mycroft repeated. He couldn't keep the outrage from his voice. "Have you considered perhaps _not_ breaking into my property in the middle of the night? That would be most conducive to my _welfare."_

"Your recovery, then," Greg said. He held out both his hands. "C'mon, gorgeous. Up. We've gotta get going… there's loads to cover, and I've only got one night."

The sparkling white glow was not dwindling. Mycroft looked around in bewilderment - he couldn't see even the faintest indication of where it came from. Greg seemed to be radiating it with the sheer joy of his smile.

"Greg…" he managed. "Greg, I - I don't - ..."

Greg laughed.

The whole room rang with it.

"You never _trust me,"_ he chided. His face was full of fondness, full of warmth. Mycroft hadn't been looked at that way in a year. "Have I ever gotten you into trouble? No. You're a worrywart, and you know you are. Now c'mon, up you get. Quit stalling."

A possibility occurred. Mycroft blinked. "Did I take the wrong dosage of Night Nurse?"

"Why?" asked Greg. He eyed Mycroft playfully. "D'you doubt your senses?"

"Somewhat," Mycroft admitted, watching him glitter. "You - sound as if you're - …"

With a wave, Greg indicated the horrendous Christmas jumper - as if this answered every possible question.

Mycroft shook his head, baffled.

Greg's eyes brimmed with delight. "Myke… I'm the Ghost of Christmas Past."

Mycroft could have sworn for a moment that he'd said _'the Ghost of Christmas Past'._

"And... whatdoes that involve?" he enquired, suspecting he rather didn't want to know.

Greg held out his hands again.

"C'mon!" he said, grasping eagerly for Mycroft's fingers. "I'll show you. _Seriously,_ gorgeous. We're wasting time."

"And where might I ask are we going?" Mycroft said. "You are _aware_ that it's one o'clock in the morning, aren't you? On a bank holiday, no less."

Greg came around the bed, seized Mycroft's hands in his own - as if they'd never parted - as if they'd never gone a day without each other - and hauled him happily out of bed.

"Let's go," Greg said. "You'll be fine, love. I promise. Just hold onto me."

Perhaps The Diogenes Club had decided to infuse this year's Christmas Eve supper with psychoactive drugs, Mycroft thought.

It was an unusual choice for them to make. But it would certainly explain a few things.

Greg pulled him eagerly towards the window.

"Greg," he said again, in despair. "Greg, please… for heaven's sake… what are you doing?"

As Greg started opening the window, Mycroft’s concern ramped up to alarm.

 _"Greg,"_ he said - as sharp as his exhaustion would allow. "Greg, I must _protest -_ i n the _strongest possible terms."_

Greg turned around, smiling. The window was now wide open behind him; the curtains stirred in the icy December breeze.

"It's alright, gorgeous," he said.

As he came towards Mycroft, every cell of Mycroft's being fell still.

Greg placed a gentle hand upon his chest - where the deep 'V' of his dressing gown exposed his heart. His fingers touched, just lightly. A faint, curious tingle spread beneath Mycroft’s skin; his entire body pulsed in response.

"There you go," Greg said. He winked. "All set now."

The breath vanished from Mycroft's lungs. "I - … well," he managed, "that's - ... I'm not quite sure what - "

Greg grabbed his hand, pulled him by the arm, and dragged them both straight through the window.

Mycroft barely opened his mouth to scream before his socked feet landed suddenly in snow.

He reeled, gasping at the sudden shock of daylight - and as he whirled around, he found that they were standing on an open country road. Fields stretched off into the distance either side. His bedroom, his house, and all of London had vanished. Not a flicker of them remained to be seen. The darkness and the night had vanished too, and it was a clear, cold winter morning, with snow lying thick upon the ground.

Mycroft gaped.

He turned to Greg - who stood beside him, still grinning, in his Christmas pudding jumper and his jeans.

"Told you you'd be fine," Greg said, with a playful nudge of his arm.

Mycroft let out a stream of gasped profanity - including some choice phrases that Greg had never heard him utter, not once in three years. No situation had warranted them before.

This one did.

Greg's laughter threw a flock of sparrows into flight from the hedgerow.

 _"Come on,_  gorgeous, it wasn't that bad! You're still in one piece, aren't you?" He grinned, his eyes flashing. "D'you recognise it yet?"

_Recognise it?_

Mycroft had recognised it at once.

"I - was a child here," he managed. But it couldn't be true. It couldn't _possibly_ be true. "This is - … my preparatory school was just - "

He gestured along the lane - then realised with a rush of embarrassment that he was standing here in his dressing gown and socks. He wrenched the inadequate wrap of burgundy velvet more tightly around himself, scowling.

"Greg," he muttered, his voice low. "Whatever… _madness_ this is, could you not have waited _half a moment_ while I found myself some underpants?"

Greg rolled his eyes. "You won't need underpants, fusspot," he said. "You'd have packed for two hours if I let you."

 _An underpants-optional magical journey to my old boarding school,_ Mycroft thought, _with my sparkling ex-boyfriend._

Perhaps Anthea had put something in his coffee.

"That doesn't ease my feeling of dread in the slightest," he told the ghost - the spirit - _whatever_ the bloody thing was, as it continued to smile at him unabashed.

"Is that why your lip's trembling?" Greg asked. He leant a little closer. "What's that in the corner of your eye?"

"It is freezing out here," Mycroft snapped. "The - breeze irritates my eyes." He pulled his dressing gown around himself tighter still. "Why am I here?"

Greg nodded gently down the country lane. "D'you remember the way?" he asked.

Mycroft's heart heaved.

"I could - probably walk it blindfolded," he muttered.

Greg offered his hand, fondly.

Mycroft's heart heaved twice in as many seconds.

"C'mon," said Greg. He winked. "Let's scoot."

Mycroft swallowed, ignored his hand, and proceeded up the lane.

If this was going to happen, he thought, they had best get it over with.

He wished the wind weren't so biting, nor the sensations and the memories so vivid. He wanted to dismiss it all as a dream.

The truth was that he knew this place. He recognised every gate, every post and every tree that they passed. He recognised the shaggy ponies that after a few minutes came trotting towards them, pulling coaches full of young gentlemen in a burgundy school uniform he hadn't laid eyes on in over thirty years. He remembered that uniform. He remembered the feeling of pride, aged seven and a half, when he'd first put it on and presented himself in the drawing room to his parents. His delighted mother had taken his tiny face in her willowy hands, kissed him fondly and told him he was the very image of his father; while his father, drinking port by the fire, had with a stiff nod informed Mycroft that he would do very well at Brentwood.

Mycroft also remembered the relief, aged thirteen, when he'd wrenched the damn thing off for the final time.

"D'you recognise them all?" Greg asked, jolting Mycroft from his reminiscence.

Mycroft looked up into the coaches that passed. The boys within were in great spirits - calling to each other in the crisp morning air, laughing and waving at the other coaches. They were headed home for Christmas.

Names returned against Mycroft's will - names he thought had been lost to time. He'd never forgotten their faces. At the sight of one boy in particular, who'd taken a keen pleasure in tormenting Mycroft at every opportunity, he found himself shrinking back a little - afraid even now, even in his forties. A single flash of that face was enough to made his blood run cold. The young man was braying with laughter as he and his cronies tossed pebbles at the pony of a nearby cart.

"Just shadows," came the reassurance from Mycroft's side - a hand as warm as the voice laid upon his back. "Shadows of things that've happened... they don't know we're here."

It was little comfort. Mycroft averted his eyes from the coaches, and they made their way in silence through the colossal iron gates. Even after all this time, they evoked a tremor in his heart.

Brentwood loomed up ahead.

At the sight of it, Mycroft found himself overwhelmed by memories - thousands of them - each one connected with a thousand other thoughts and hopes and fears, all long since forgotten.

This place had been his prison and his sanctuary.

Brentwood had been the beginning of it all: this Victorian mansion of dull red brick. _Was it always so dreary?_ Mycroft thought, as they trudged to the front entrance through the snow. Some part of him suspected it had. He'd just been too young to know it. He'd had no choice in his attendance at Brentwood. Distress had seemed a rather hopeless thing to feel.

As they stepped into the entrance hall, Mycroft's heart beat ever harder. There was a cold, quiet bareness in the air - a feeling he associated with getting up in the dark, and never having quite enough to eat. His parents had spoken to the headmaster when he was ten. They'd made one of their rare visits - dropping in for an hour on their way to the Downs for Christmas - and been appalled to discover he'd become (as his mother termed it) 'quite so broad'. He'd had his portion sizes cut at once.

If he recalled correctly, it hadn't made him trim. Just broad and miserable, and mocked by all who noticed.

"Feels kinda empty, doesn't it?" the Ghost remarked, leading him to the stairs. "All gone off for Christmas. Only one left now."

Mycroft said nothing.

He knew exactly who was left.

He followed in pale silence, trailing his fingers along the polished oak bannister as they climbed.

Greg led him quietly to a dormitory on the fifth floor - a dormitory he'd hoped he'd never see again.

At the end of one bed, a lonely boy sat reading by himself. There didn't seem to be a sound in the world to disturb him - not a voice, not a breath of wind, not a closing of a distant door. Even the pages, as the young man turned them, turned in utter silence.

Mycroft sat down on the next bed. The springs didn't creak; the covers didn't crumple.

He gazed, his heart breaking, at the little boy he'd once been.

After some time, Greg's hand laid upon his shoulder.

"What's the matter?" Greg asked.

Mycroft hadn't been aware of the heat in his eyes. Tears were threatening to break - tired, lonely tears.

He reached up to staunch them, quietly pressing the pads of his fingers to his eyes.

"It isn't important," he muttered.

"It is," Greg said. He squeezed Mycroft's shoulder. "Say it."

Mycroft's throat worked. He wished his younger self could see him - wished the little boy would suddenly realise he was here, and look up at him, so that Mycroft could put his arms around him. Not say a word - simply hold him.

"I was - not that fat," he whispered. His throat threatened to seal. "There was no need for them to - …"

He swallowed hard.

"I was - treated rather harshly, Greg." He looked down at his hands. "I never told you. I thought you might - laugh - find it funny. That I was a... _'fat child'._ My brother certainly does." He hesitated. "Worse, you - might have pitied me."

Greg didn't comment. He quietly rubbed Mycroft's back. "Let's see another Christmas here," he said.

Mycroft didn't know whether to laugh.

"They were much the same," he said. He gazed in despair at the gentle, red-haired boy who'd barely heard a loving word once he'd passed through the doors of this school - serious and studious, barely eleven but much older in his features, calm as he read a book of short stories to himself. Solitude had been his only comfort. It had come to feel like happiness, in time. "I - … when I was... younger, Greg, I - …"

His throat closed again.

 _Not that story,_ he told himself viciously. _Do not tell that story._

"Go on," Greg murmured. "M'here."

Mycroft closed his eyes, placing his hands across his face. He swallowed back the feeling.

"At first, I - spent Christmas breaks with my grandmother. Surrey. My parents would usually go away with Sherlock, and I could not return home, so I - I was - permitted to stay with Mámé."

He'd run to her arms up the path. Every year. Every single year.

"She… made a terrible fuss of me," he said, shaking. "Fed me quite excessively. She and I were - very close."

Greg hesitated, gentle fingers stroking between his shoulders.

"How - old were you?" he asked.

Mycroft bit into his lip.

He would not weep. He hadn't been allowed to cry like a child even when he _was_ a child. He certainly wouldn't do it now.

"Ten." His throat twisted around the noise. "My parents - wrote to me. To inform me Mámé had - … and I was to stay at Brentwood from now on for Christmas."

Silence fell.

Greg's arms wrapped around Mycroft slowly - arms he hadn't felt for a year.

He'd missed them so much that the agony of it took his breath away.

As Greg held him, and petted the back of his hair, cold words rose up amidst the grief. They were Mycroft's armour. They were the sharp stab of a pin that relieved the pressure of the pain - they were facts, as hard and supportive as an old oak chair, and they'd made it all possible to bear.

"All lives end," he breathed. "All hearts are broken. Caring is not an advantage."

Greg was quiet for a moment. "Is this where you started telling yourself that?"

Mycroft closed his eyes.

He'd written it over and over in his diary each night - until he was calm, and able to sleep. It had become something of a ritual. A coping mechanism. He'd written the words out until they didn't hurt, and they belonged to him, and they were true.

Greg placed a quiet kiss to the top of his head.

"M'sorry no-one taught you how to grieve," he whispered.

Mycroft's chest ached.

He leant quietly into Greg's arms.

It was only a dream, he thought. It was alright to miss Greg in his dreams.

"It hardly matters," he said, hollow. "It - makes little difference now."

Greg said nothing for some time. Quietly he stroked Mycroft's hair.

"Was Sherlock here with you?" he asked.

Mycroft's eyes dulled. "No, I… was at Eton before he reached preparatory school. When the time came, he wasn't sent so far away as Brentwood. My mother wouldn't have permitted it."

He hesitated, noting a strange emotion amidst the familiar anger - something quiet; something new.

"What's wrong?" Greg asked, after a minute's silence.

"I - did not send Sherlock a Christmas card." Mycroft glanced at his younger self. The boy had barely moved since their arrival - silently turning pages, lost in a world where stories were only short and always ended happily. "Perhaps I should have. It - was not his fault that our parents - ... and it wouldn't have taken long. He's rather gone out of his way to involve me this year."

He looked down at his hands.

"Some acknowledgement might have been fitting," he mumbled.

Greg's fingers wove gently with his own.

"C'mon," he said. "Let's... keep moving. Got more Christmasses to call in on."

"I'm not sure I wish to, Greg." Mycroft looked up at him, weakly. "This one has been rather enough."

"You want to stay here forever?" Greg raised an eyebrow. "Don't worry, love. I'll get you through safe to dawn... I always did."

Mycroft's eyes burned ever more painfully, gazing up at him.

"You were... rather wonderful, you know." His throat tightened. "You were enough to make me forget it all, sometimes. To feel for a while that perhaps I... I wasn't - ..."

He sighed, swallowing it all away.

 _Sentiment,_ he thought. _Unnecessary._

"Let us go, then," he said, rising wearily to his feet. He smoothed the creases from his dressing gown. "Every minute brings me another minute closer to consciousness."

Greg reached out for him.

"D'you want to see a happier Christmas?"

Mycroft exhaled. "Yes," he begged - and tiredly took Greg's hand.

As they stepped through the nearest wall, Mycroft turned his eyes back to the dormitory. He kept his gaze on the little boy until the very last moment, watching the darkness smudge him from sight.

Time and space whirled up in a wind around them.

The years went rushing by.

 


	5. Wasted on the Young

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My thanks to our gorgeous Green Violin Bow for her suggestion for this chapter. I hope I've done it justice.

****As the world re-materialised around them, Mycroft covered his face and groaned.

"Oh… dear God, _no."_

Beside him, The Ghost of Christmas Past was already dancing.

"What's the matter?" the Ghost demanded, laughing, over the blast of the music and the raucous chatter of the crowd. The bar was packed. It was Soho, and it was 1996.

And Mycroft was in his dressing gown and socks, and wearing no pants.

"I have no wish to be reminded of the poor decisions of my youth," he protested, nearly shouting over the noise. People moved around them completely unaware, carrying drinks and trays of food, laughing and hugging friends as they met - people in glittery antlers, people dressed up as snowmen and elves. Mycroft already wanted to crawl beneath a table and hide until it was over.

"Tough!" the Ghost laughed, and grabbed his hand. "This was an important night, y'know." He dragged Mycroft happily through the crowd. "C'mon. There's somebody you need to see."

Mycroft scrabbled to hold onto the Ghost - and his dressing gown - as they elbowed their way through the bar. He found himself apologising to people who could neither see nor hear him, clinging to the Ghost's hand and hoping against all hope that this wasn't going to be as mortifying as he remembered.

He suspected it was going to be worse.

Karaoke blared out from the stage. A large work group, who'd clearly been celebrating for several hours now, were cheering on the current brave soul as he ungainly came into land on _Wonderful Christmastime_. Mycroft's heart contracted at the sight of them all. The force of the memory took his breath away. It seemed both like yesterday and a lifetime ago.

The Ghost nudged him up to the bar, where it was quieter.

Wincing, Mycroft cast his eyes around the people waiting to be served - and heard the Ghost sigh with longing in his ear.

"Christ, gorgeous… why did you _ever_ get rid of the beard?"

He was looking directly to Mycroft's left.

Mycroft reluctantly turned his gaze.

On the stool beside them, as gracefully poised as an artist's model, was a familiar young man.

For a moment, Mycroft thought there must have been some mistake: that this was _not_ the right person, and if he only turned his startled eyes three seats along, he would spot the awkward, sexually frustrated lump he actually had been in his late twenties.

He could not possibly have been _this_ young man - this lithe, tall, elegant young man, who sat with such a striking blend of self-confidence and self-consciousness that nearby eyes couldn't keep themselves away from him. People were gazing, glancing, noticing again and again this remarkable individual - the idle ease of his posture, his cool and thoughtful frown, the coltish length of his legs. His hair was a deep, darkly flaming red. Though kept quite short, it couldn't hide its playful youth-given curl. His short red beard was pristinely groomed, trimmed to the angle of his jaw with precision. It made him look sharper - shrewder - a little older. His guarded grey eyes were almost feline as he sipped at a glass of bourbon, awaiting his quarry, surveying the crowded bar with disinterest.

Wariness and fragility honed his features to almost classical beauty. He looked like he'd been painted by Winterhalter. He was magnificent.

As he gazed at his younger self, Mycroft had never felt so old nor so tired in his life - nor so brokenly riddled with regret.

How could he not have known?

How had he not spent each day stationed firmly before a full-length mirror, gazing with rapturous delight at every speck of his own youth and vitality? He'd considered himself a grumpy, sullen little snake. He'd wound his way through a sparse scattering of unwise one night stands, longing for just one of them to develop into a boyfriend. He'd wanted to be taken out and wined and dined. He'd convinced himself that he radiated loneliness and neediness in his every movement.

He hadn't.

He'd been gorgeous.

And now he was nearly fifty - dumped and lonely, living in a house that was crumbling into dereliction around him, working seventy-hour weeks, and resigning himself to his twilight years alone.

Seeing his eleven-year-old self, he'd wanted to take the boy into his arms and weep.

Seeing his twenty-year-old, he wanted to take him by the front of his sleek little pewter-grey suit, hurl him against the nearest surface and _scream_ at the wretched creature to just _look at himself_ \- just once, just to stand and _gaze_ at his own face, his hands, his endless bloody legs - and then take them out to a bar, like this one, and show them to men - show them to _anyone_ who would look at him - let someone fall in love with him so deeply that he never let Mycroft go, not once, not ever, not for a moment.

Applause suddenly broke out from the stage.

With it broke the final fragments of Mycroft's heart.

He realised what was about to happen - and realised he was helpless but to watch.

He turned, pale and weakening, as the wannabe Paul McCartney wobbled down from the microphone. The poor man received his polite cheers with a nervous grin, sweating profusely as he resumed his seat.

He was replaced by someone whose grin lit the bar brighter than a firework. The next performer ascended the stage without a moment's hesitation, beaming in his scarlet Christmas jumper with a sequinned pudding on the front.

As he took the microphone, the polite applause kicked up into rapturous cheers. Wolf whistles and requests broke out. Their recipient was utterly unfazed, grinning as he selected a song on the machine. He was twenty-nine, and he was gorgeous - and as Scotland Yard began to chant for him - _"Skip! Skip! Skip!" -_ Detective Sergeant Gregory Lestrade only beamed ever brighter.

Mycroft turned his heart-broken gaze sideways to the young man he'd once been.

His younger self had taken interest in the goings-on. He was watching over the rim of his bourbon, dark-eyed and fascinated, as the handsome policeman across the bar selected a song.

Music blasted from the speakers. Scotland Yard tore the air apart with cheers as they recognised it.

Beside Mycroft, the Ghost of Christmas Past gave a guilty wince.

"Christ," he said. "This memory hasn't dated well..."

It was _Another Rock and Roll Christmas._

"We weren't aware he was a sex offender at the time," Mycroft muttered, with a frown. He couldn't remember taking a seat. "Just - be quiet, will you? This - … I wish to watch this."

The Ghost sat down beside him, grinning and biting his lip.

Up on stage, DS Lestrade hit the opening bars of the song. He threw himself into it with all his soul. Though he wasn't a magnificent singer, he was a magnificent performer, and his colleagues were clapping along in seconds. He wasn't afraid to dance - to own the ludicrous song with all his might, and sing it like he meant it - for the sake of the season, and for the joy of his co-workers.

By the chorus, all of Scotland Yard were on their feet. The song and Greg's voice thundered through the bar.

It was not the first time that Mycroft had fallen in love with Greg Lestrade.

But it felt just like it.

He couldn't take his eyes away. Greg was volcanically, unbearably, explosively _wonderful._ He was brave and frivolous and funny, and every single one of his colleagues thought the world of him. Mycroft could only gaze in rapture at the force of nature Greg had been, that magnificent creation of humanity who wasn't afraid to stand on a stage and sing a raucous song for his workmates to laugh and cheer. Greg had the lot of them in the palm of his hand. They adored him.

Almost as much as the young man watching quietly from the bar.

As his younger self stirred beside him, Mycroft tugged his shining eyes with reluctance from the stage. He took a glance at his own youthful face.

_God help me._

He remembered that feeling.

He remembered it like it was an hour ago - he remembered every thought that caused that expression. Wonder, joy and despair, all in one. A fizzling, aching, blinding cocktail of longing and delight, and that feeling of _inadequacy -_ and _need_ \- and the soaring sensation that had jumped through his stomach whenever it seemed like Greg had glanced this way - looked across to the bar, and flashed a grin - let his gaze linger a second - perhaps even sung a line in this direction. It had been intoxicating: just the _possibility_ of eye contact. Just the thought of a moment's connection with the man who could grab a microphone and entertain an entire bar.

It had been love, Mycroft realised.

Love before Greg even hit the final chorus. Reasonless, urgent, instinctive love. Love that didn't need to know a name. Love that just _was._

It was so beautiful to remember that, for a minute or two, he quite forgot the other memory of this night.

It returned with a lurch as, over his younger self's shoulder, he spotted a shaven-headed and greasy-skinned gentleman come sliding into the bar, looking sullen and unimpressed.

The man clocked his prey at once. He wasted no time in coming over, uninterested in the crowd and the music and the festivities. He'd not come for karaoke. He'd not come for Christmas.

He'd come for Mycroft.

"You Holmes?" the man grunted, upon reaching the bar.

Mycroft watched his own expression stiffen slightly, focus wrenched from the handsome stranger up on stage. The brief flash of fear vanished before the drug dealer could see it. It was masked beneath resolve and defiance. His younger self turned on his stool to face the man, drawing up to his full height and surveying the wretch with displeasure along the length of his nose.

"You are 'Tony', are you?" Mycroft heard himself enquire. _Dear God, when did I ever command that depth of confidence?_

"Yeah." The drug dealer sniffed, jaw set in unease. He wasn't used to being summoned. "What's this about?"

"I believe you know my younger brother: Sherlock."

The man's face gave nothing away. "What's this _about?"_ he said again.

"It's about you supplying him with narcotics," Mycroft said. "And how you are to cease doing so immediately. You might be unaware that he's recently been hospitalised. Contaminated cocaine. I understand that _you_ supplied it to him."

The dealer studied him in bewilderment - this arrogant, defiant young man, whose glare would brook no disagreement and whose voice did not betray a scrap of the terror that he actually felt.

"I only deal in proper," the man grunted. "I sell quality."

"You are a liar," Mycroft Holmes informed him, his tones arctic and his eyes flashing. "What you sold him was cut with both glucose and levamisole. Cattle dewormer. That you supplied him with illegal substances is unacceptable. That you have now also harmed him is unforgivable. You are to break all contact with my brother, and not return his calls from this day forwards. Is that patently clear?"

The dealer stared at him, amazed.

Some of the surprise was starting to shake.

"Or... what?" he said. "I mean… s'none of your business, is it? Sherlock calls me, pays me for stuff... I get it to him. What exactly d'you propose to do about that?"

"Brave sentiment," Mycroft sneered, "from a man who can expect a lengthy prison sentence, after I make a single phone call."

"Listen," the man growled, his voice hardened. He attempted to step into Mycroft's personal space - to take hold of him by the shoulder, to threaten him.

Mycroft took an immediate disgusted step backwards.

"Do not _touch_ me," he spat. "This is not up for discussion. Comply, or face the law."

"I dunno who the _hell_ you think you are, mate. But you can bloody listen to me, alright? What I do isn't _nothing_ to do with you. And I'm not gonna take this sort of - "

"It is _everything_ to do with me," Mycroft raged, white-faced and furious. People nearby had begun to notice. " You will break _all_ contact with my brother, or you will _suffer the consequences."_

The man lunged for him; Mycroft dodged. A few people jerked as they were bumped into. Drinks spilled. As their affronted owners turned in anger and alarm, a space began to form in the crowd. Mycroft and the dealer started to shout, voices raised, each as outraged as the other and unwilling to back down. The music staggered to a halt.

The dealer then realised he was surrounded, and that the crowd were taking notice. Panic skittered across his face. In his fear, his flashing eyes fixed squarely on Mycroft. He made another wild lunge. Mycroft threw up his arms to defend himself, bracing to be struck. People screamed.

And from the wall of panicked onlookers burst a protector.

DS Lestrade strode into the confrontation as readily as he'd jumped onto the stage.

He pushed himself at once between the two of them, not a breath of fear on his face. He shoved the dealer backwards.

"Whoa!" he barked - shielding Mycroft with sudden height and severity. _"Enough!_ Hands to yourself, mate, alright? You wanna cool it down, please?"

The dealer slung back a fist.

As the punch connected with Greg's jaw, the entire bar reeled.

Greg reeled. Mycroft reeled. Watching in horror at the edge of the circle, a second Mycroft in his dressing gown reeled, as did the Ghost who stood beside him. The crack that sounded was the single most horrifying noise in existence.

Within seconds, the drug dealer vanished under a pile of tipsy but highly-trained Scotland Yard officers.

Mycroft could only watch as the rest of the scene played out, despairing as to how he had ever been so foolish.

Greg was examined for immediate danger, pronounced well enough to make the journey to hospital, and an ambulance was summoned. Mycroft's younger self - mortified - refused point-blank to leave the side of the off-duty sergeant who'd just taken a fist to the face for him - no matter how many Scotland Yard colleagues attempted to transfer Greg into their care.

"I am so sorry," Mycroft watched himself say in utter embarrassment, over and over. "Officer, I am - so very, _very_ sorry..."

Greg - ever gracious - kept miming for him not to worry, nursing his bloodied mouth with a hand.

"I cannot believe this is how we first met," Mycroft muttered to the Ghost of Christmas Past, who had acquired a bowl of peanuts from somewhere. He was watching the scene with interest as he ate them.

"I always kinda liked it," the Ghost shrugged. He cast Mycroft a mischievous smile. "Not often I got to be heroic. And c'mon... it's a hell of a story. Broke off a Christmas work do to defend you from a drug dealer? You've got to admit that's a good one."

"It was _spectacularly_ stupid of me," Mycroft mumbled.

News rippled through the bar that the ambulance had arrived.

He watched, heart in his throat, as his younger self helped Greg out of the chair - protective, horrified and in love with this man whose name he still didn't know. There was blood from Greg's mouth all over Mycroft's best suit. He hadn't cared in the least.

"I still haven't forgiven myself for this night," he sighed, as he watched.

The Ghost nudged his arm. "You were protecting Sherlock, gorgeous. Don't beat yourself up."

"It was ludicrous to think I could just confront the man. He could have broken your neck." Mycroft shuddered, feeling nausea rise in his throat at the very notion. "I was arrogant," he said. "I'd been making progress at MI5. Informed that I was - _'destined for great things'…_ and my - father had recently passed away. September. God help me, Greg. It shouldn't have made me feel free, but it did, and I..."

"Oi," Greg said, beside him.

Mycroft turned to look - _those gentle eyes,_ he thought. They'd forgiven him a thousand idiocies.

"It's fine," said Greg. "You made amends, didn't you? Came the whole way in the ambulance with me... telling me every three seconds you were sorry. No need to keep saying it now."

Mycroft couldn't fight a smile.

"I - hoped that if I stayed with you until you'd had medical treatment, and things had calmed, perhaps I could… ask your name. Thank you properly." He hesitated, flushing. "Perhaps - establish if you were in the least bit interested in a… an utter  _fool_ like me..."

Greg grinned, glancing down at his shoes.

Then a moment of sadness crossed his face.

"Why'd you disappear?" he asked, looking up. Mycroft's stomach squeezed. "You… know how disappointed I was, don't you? When I realised you'd gone..."

Mycroft scoffed, even as his cheeks flared. "Be sensible, Greg."

"I mean it. One minute you were there, and you were arriving at A&E with me… then the next, I stopped to fill out a form and… you'd just vanished. Like you were a ghost."

Mycroft's heart stirred with discomfort.

He remembered all too well. He'd never felt so wretched - slipping out of a hospital exit, then waiting an hour for a taxi home, smoking every cigarette in his possession.

"I realised my continued hovering was about to become rather blatant," he mumbled. He shifted. "Your Scotland Yard colleagues quite clearly believed I'd outstayed my welcome… in the end, I decided I'd embarrassed myself quite enough for one evening. I - thought I should take my leave."

For many years, it had been his keenest regret.

Even now it stung.

"You know I asked around for weeks, don't you?" Greg said. His eyes held Mycroft's, glittering in the flashing lights of the bar. "Didn't care about the drug dealer. Just hoped somebody'd snagged your name. Phone number."

Mycroft's chest flushed with warmth.

"Greg..." he breathed, overwhelmed - and then realised, quite suddenly, that all this wasn't real.

This wasn't actually happening. He wasn't standing in a bar from twenty years ago, with some magical manifestation of Greg showing him his past, reminding him one last time where it had all begun. He was dreaming, and it wasn't real. He would wake up any second. It would all be gone again.

His throat thickened as he looked at Greg - taking a moment to feel those warm, gentle eyes upon him one last time.

"The day I… heard Sherlock mention a - 'Gareth Lestrade' - a police detective he'd been assisting with a case… I had surveillance run on you. I still remember opening the file with the photographs. God help me, Greg. I thought I'd died. I recognised you at once."

"I know," Greg said, grinning. "You've told me, gorgeous."

Mycroft's fingers curled quietly into his palms.

"I - suppose I wanted to tell you again." Heat stirred behind his eyes. "When I'm awake, I shan't be able to. You don't - look at me that way anymore. I wanted to tell you now... while I have the chance. One last time."

Greg smiled, gazing at him with undimmed affection.

"D'you remember the Christmas we got together?" he asked.

Mycroft's soul flickered like a flame in a breeze. The pain was warm and wonderful.

"How could I forget?" he said. He gazed at Greg, his heart thumping. "That… year of circling each other. Adoring your every movement. Then relief, at last."

The Ghost of Christmas Past held out a hand.

"C'mon," he said. "Come remember with me."

Exhaustion ached through Mycroft's heart.

"Must we?" he begged. "I - don't see what good it will do, Greg. It's over now. It's... gone. Everything it was."

Greg wriggled his fingers, waiting with that peaceful smile. He said nothing.

His eyes were dark and beautiful.

Mycroft decided that if he were going to wake up at any moment, he might as well every it while he could. He'd thought he'd never see Greg smile at him like that again. It was a dream - nothing more. But it was a wonderful dream.

He took Greg's hand, wrapping their fingers tightly - together again, if only until the morning.

Greg led him through the crowd towards the open door. As they passed across the threshold, time rose up and rushed around them.

 


	6. The First and the Last

****Rain lashed the dark London road beside them. Mycroft dragged his dressing gown around himself in despair, wincing as the torrent came down. He looked to Greg in distress.

"This isn't quite how I recall the evening," he said, raising his voice over the hiss of the rain.

Greg laughed, already soaked to the skin. His hair was plastered to his head. "Yeah, you missed this bit..." A crack of thunder wrenched through the sky above them. "I didn't."

He pointed down the street.

Mycroft turned to look.

A solitary figure was hurrying along the road, his coat pulled high over his head against the pouring rain. There wasn't another soul around in the world.

Mycroft's chest strained.

"You should have called a taxi..." he said, heart tugging at the sight of the poor man.

"Are you serious? I'd have missed out on the best lift of my life." Greg beamed through the rain. "Besides… last Saturday before Christmas… I'd have been waiting hours. S'only a twenty minute walk."

As the bedraggled figure drew nearer, a pair of headlights turned the corner up ahead.

Mycroft felt his stomach clench. He remembered.

He'd recognised Lestrade's walk, of all things - that steady stride, his silhouette. He recalled the giddy leaping of his heart, just like it was doing now, and he'd given the cool instruction to the driver: "Stop a moment, Chapman…"

As the approaching car pulled to a halt, the Ghost grabbed his arm.

"Quick!" he said. "Come on!"

The car stopped. The door clunked open, lashing rain from its arc.

As Mycroft and the Ghost dashed for the shelter of the car, he caught the sound of his own voice calling from inside.

"Get into the car, Lestrade, before you drown!"

The Ghost wrenched open the other side door, bundled Mycroft in by the scruff of his neck and leapt in after him. As both doors slammed, and the car set off, Mycroft found himself facing the man he'd been almost exactly four years ago.

His previous self was sitting quite comfortably in the backseat, smirking over his reading glasses at the drenched Inspector Lestrade. A copy of _The Times_ was open on his lap, and though on the surface he seemed amused, Mycroft knew his heart was now banging like a drum.

"Thank you," Greg gasped, pushing his hands up over his face.  The poor man was so wet he was panting. "Christ… didn't seem so bad when I set off."

"And to where were you attempting to swim?" Mycroft's previous self enquired, raising an eyebrow.

Greg flashed him a grin. "Home," he said. "Just met a friend. Christmas drink."

"Address?"

"C'mon, Mycroft... you've had security checks run on me. You know my address."

Mycroft smirked, folded up his copy of _The Times,_ and leant obliviously between the two ghosts to speak to his driver. He gave the man Greg's address, closed the privacy screen between them, and relaxed back into his seat.

"Jesus," Greg groaned, staring down at his soaking wet jeans. "I'm ruining your upholstery… sorry. Sure you don't want to kick me out?"

"It's only water, Lestrade." Mycroft removed his reading glasses, folding them away into the leather case he slipped from inside his suit jacket. "And, as I understand, it's the season of goodwill to all men. Withdrawing the offer of a lift and ejecting you back into heavy rain seems rather counter to that sentiment."

In the opposite seat, his older self cringed. Had his crush on Lestrade always been so very obvious? Apparently so. He sounded like a bad Jeeves and Wooster adaptation.

"You're kind," Greg said, with a grin. "Seriously, thanks... it's - good of you to stop."

Mycroft caught the flash of softness in his own eyes. "It's quite alright," his previous self murmured. "After all of your support in guarding Sherlock's welfare this year, it seems the least I can do."

"Genuinely, Myke... you can stop thanking me now. I care about him as much as you."

 _'Myke'._ Had this been the first time? Mycroft wondered. From the look on his previous self's face, it might well have been. After a moment of wringing out his sleeves, Lestrade picked up the slight skip he'd caused and said,

"Sorry - always the full name, isn't it?"

"No, it's… quite alright," came the cool reply. A little colour had risen in his previous self's cheeks. "Not something I get commonly, but - 'Myke' is - fine."

Lestrade paused. Mycroft felt the atmosphere in the car thicken, tighten, soften around them.

"Fine - from me?" Lestrade checked.

His previous self visibly passed his tongue across his teeth, buying himself a moment to respond. "I would perhaps prefer it not used in front of Sherlock," he said, sleekly.

"D'you not get many pet names?" Lestrade asked. His eyes were shining, and rather dark.

"As I am no-one's pet, Lestrade, not as such."

"Not… 'My', or… 'Croftie'... 'baby'... 'cute stuff'..."

"I do believe you're being flippant with me," Mycroft murmured, his eyes glittering.

Lestrade's mouth curved at the corners. "Maybe I am."

"Indeed? Perhaps my goodwill to all men might yet be revoked… rather churlish of you, I must say, to accept my gracious offer and then spend the journey tormenting me."

"I might be a little tipsy," Lestrade said, with a grin. "I'm… feeling playful. Sorry."

"Ahh… putting the 'merry' into 'Merry Christmas', were you?"

"A bit," admitted Lestrade. "Not much. I'm not gonna throw up in your pretty car. Don't worry."

"You seem rather in control of your faculties," Mycroft said, a half-purr, "for one who spent the evening indulging in Christmas spirit."

"I know my limits," said Greg. "Still the cosy side of tipsy. Just a bit… mischievous, maybe."

"Mischievous? Heaven help us."

"'Tis the season," Greg grinned, tipping his head back against the leather headrest. His eyes glinted. "What are you doing out, anyway? You don't look like you've been on the lash."

"On the what, excuse me?"

"On the _lash,"_ said Greg. "Out - being merry. Indulging in Christmas spirit."

Mycroft smirked with amusement, crossing one slender leg over the other. "Ah… in that case, no. A work event, I'm afraid." He adjusted the angle of one cufflink, offering a glimpse of one pale, elegant wrist. Greg's eyes flicked to it like a magnet. "Now home to Radio Four and my cocoa."

Greg's eyes gleamed. "Steady on, wild thing," he soothed.

The Ghost of Christmas Past let out a laugh.

"How the hell did we not know?" he asked, directing the question to the smiling, dressing-clad gown man at his side. Mycroft couldn't resist a sigh.

"I think we did," he murmured. The pair opposite were eyeing each other with glittering amusement, their gazes all the brighter just to behold each other.

Everything was ahead of them, Mycroft thought - all the hope, all the relief, all the happiness.

All the doubt.

All the dawning grief as it began to die.

Watching them fall in love reminded him they would fall out of it, too.

At least… Greg would.

As he watched them flirt, and tease, and talk, Mycroft found himself sinking more and more into sadness.

Greg had adored him, once. It was so clear. Three long years, and at first it had been like this - as bright as the new flowers in spring. They'd toyed with each other for months before this night, and the world had been exciting and new. Love had been so easy. It had felt so good.

There was no shadow of the end, here in the beginning.

It almost didn't seem possible that it ever _would_ end, watching them. They were so happy.

Mycroft wished he could speak to them. Appear in a flash, here in his dressing gown right beside them - reach out - take their hands and beg them to listen. _To what advice?_ he thought. He gazed at himself, watching own eyes shine, his face suffused with the company of the man he loved.

 _Don't,_ he would advise. _Whatever you did… do not do it. Do not tire him. Do not bore him. Whatever you must do to keep his love, find it and do it. For the sake of your happiness... please._

It seemed almost no time before the car was drawing to a stop.

"I guess this is me," Greg said, with a small smile. "Thanks for - …"

"Not at all."

"Really, it was kind." A sparkle of nervous humour. "Surprised you didn't just speed up and splash me with a puddle."

Mycroft watched his own eyes lower beneath his lashes, giving a soft huff of amusement. "No, I'm… not sure you've done anything to warrant that, inspector. Perhaps next time."

A pause - a little too long. Mycroft found himself holding his breath for them.

"Have a good Christmas, won't you?" Greg said. "If I don't see you. Whatever you're up to… hope it's fun."

"I shall. You too, Lestrade. I - trust it shall be very merry for you. Full of mischief."

Greg grinned - for the first time, a little shy.

"Mischief's not so much fun on your own," he confessed.

"Oh?"

"No. Kinda rubbish, to be honest." Greg hesitated, then retreated to another comforting flash of humour. "Let me know if you get bored? We could go to a bar. I'll fight a drug dealer for you."

Both Mycrofts cringed as one.

"Dear God," the younger one sighed, laying a hand across his eyes. "The follies of youth. Perhaps not. How kind of you to offer, though."

"Alright." Greg paused once more, passing his tongue between his lips. "Maybe we'll just skip the drug dealer part, then."

Mycroft looked up from beneath his hand - startled.

Greg held his nerve. He gazed back, brave and desperately afraid at once. He tried a hopeful smile.

"If you want," he added, quietly.

Mycroft heard himself swallow in the silence. "You - … to a bar?"

Greg wet his lips again. In his eyes shone the moment he decided to go for gold.

He gave a slight shrug, his gaze fixed on Mycroft.

"Or... we could just kiss _now,"_ he said.

It had been the happiest and most terrifying moment of Mycroft's life.

He still recalled exactly how it felt - every tiny scrap of it. He remembered how it felt to realise one form of the world was about to end, and a brand new one was about to begin. He remembered the slip of the leather seat beneath him, as he eased across - the dampness of Greg's coat, where he laid a hand on the man's shoulder - the way Greg's eyes had fluttered shut as he leaned in close.

Their lips met.

Sitting across from them, Mycroft shut his eyes.

He could not look.

He couldn't bear it. That first kiss - that first, fragile, wonderful kiss.

Somewhere, lost in time, there'd been a last kiss too. He couldn't remember it. Some small, throwaway kiss. He'd not known. He'd had no idea. The last time he'd ever kissed the man he loved, he'd thought there would be years of kisses left - years and years, happy and fond. He'd not bothered to remember it.

It had been as precious as this one.

And he'd tossed it away, like it was nothing.

A hand rested on his shoulder. Mycroft stiffened, opening his eyes.

The Ghost gazed across at him, gently. Opposite them, on the back seat of Mycroft's car, their younger selves were kissing like they'd never be lonely again. Greg had cupped his face; Mycroft's fingers had scrunched into Greg's wet hair. Desperation wracked both their faces as they kissed and fell in love.

He'd taken Greg home with him that night. Mycroft remembered every moment. Greg hadn't left until nine o'clock the next evening, and only under the threat of work in the morning. He'd come back to Mycroft after his shift.

They'd been addicted to each other, Mycroft thought. So enchanted.

Every moment with Greg had been perfect, just as it was. His eyes, his voice. The things he said. The way he reached for Mycroft so readily, as if there were nothing wrong with him in the world - the way he eased through every barrier, turned them all happily to nothing, and it had all begun this night in this car. It had begun with a single kiss.

And now it was gone.

"My... time's nearly up, gorgeous," the Ghost said, gently. "We've got one more Christmas to see."

Mycroft tried to think what Christmas could possibly be worth seeing more than this one.

And then he realised - and the whole world lurched around him.

"Please," he whispered. His throat squeezed shut. "Please do not show me that Christmas."

Colour and shadow swept into a whirl around them. The car was breathed away, and the rain on the roof and the darkness too, and in its place there came a restaurant - candlelight, piano, the smell of wine and garlic.

They were standing beside a table for two.

The couple sitting there were eating in silence - their eyes downcast, their posture uneasy.

Mycroft made to turn his back. The Ghost caught hold of his arm.

"I don't wish to look," Mycroft bit out, his heart jolting.

Greg squeezed his arm, and turned him quietly around. "You must," he murmured.

In misery, Mycroft cast his eyes back down towards the table.

The man he'd been, one year ago, had finished his food. Mycroft couldn't even remember what he'd eaten. He was now gazing around the rest of the room as he waited for Greg to finish - his joyless stare trailing the other diners, the waiting staff, the Christmas tree glittering in crimson and gold in one corner. No conversation was passing across the table.

Mycroft's heart threatened to buckle under the weight of the silence, and all it held.

He looked at the Ghost that stood beside him; his eyes already burned.

"I knew," he whispered. Misery seared through his throat. "I - knew, Greg. I'd known for weeks. You didn't shock me."

The Ghost said nothing, gazing back at him in silence.

"I knew something had changed." Mycroft glanced back at the table - the man he'd adored, finishing his lasagne with a look of failing and nervous resolve. Greg clearly hadn't tasted a single bite of the thing. He was eating slowly because he could barely bring himself to swallow. He knew what he'd come here to do to Mycroft. To do to them.

Mycroft had known it, too.

"All those extra shifts," he mumbled. His heart strained. "Before, you came home so eagerly... to be with me. You'd defended our time together like a lion. Then suddenly you were - … _every_ weekend. _Every_ late night. You were taking shift after shift, and I..."

He hesitated, his fingers curling into his palms.

"I _knew,_ Greg," he said, his voice breaking. "I knew you were pulling away from me. I knew it long before this night."

He swallowed, forcing himself to go on. He'd never spoken about this - not to another soul. He'd carried it for a year.

"Conversations about our memories. The years we'd had. Suddenly you were thinking all the time. I used to sit and watch you - sit and listen to you thinking. I tried not to notice it for months, hoping the happiness would return, but then I… I realised… it is the only truth."

He breathed the words deep. They were his sole strength.

"All lives end," he said. "All hearts are broken."

He watched, numb, as Greg gave up on the lasagne - laid down his knife and fork, with a clink - reached for a napkin, and with shaking hands cleaned his mouth.

"It was ending," Mycroft said. "All of it, ending. You were pulling free. Bored of me. Tired of me... at last. I'd known for months you were about to leave."

A waiter came to take their plates.

"You just needed the right moment," Mycroft whispered.

At their table for two, as the waiter walked away, Greg took on a brave smile.

"You okay?" he asked, his voice tight. "How was yours? Was it - all alright?"

Mycroft watched himself gate his fingers beneath his chin, expression quiet. "Yes… it was very good. Thank you."

"Good." Greg smiled again, as pale as the table cloth. "D'you - want to order dessert, or…?"

"No… no, I don't think so. Thank you. Unless you - ?"

"Oh - God. No. I'm - alright, if you are." Greg hesitated a moment more, glancing down. "Coffee, or…?"

"No, Greg - thank you."

"Right." Greg bunched a hand in the tablecloth, twisting it slowly for a second. Mycroft watched the desperate need to speak finally break inside his eyes. "Hey, erm - I... wanted to talk to you about something. S'important. I've - been thinking a while, and… it seems like now's the best time to bring it up."

Standing beside their table, Mycroft pushed his hands across his face. He breathed into them hard, shaking as he heard his own voice say, "I see."

This was the moment he'd realised. He was about to be dumped. Damage control was already kicking in.

"We've - been together three years now," Greg said. "You've always… seemed happy, and I've been happy too, and I - I've - got to admit, after Claire, I didn't think there'd be anyone who - … but it's been good between us, and I - … Jesus. Sorry. I'm n-not very good at this."

Greg reached for wine, fumbled with the glass and drained its contents in one swig.

"I guess I'm - …" he managed, voice breaking. "I'm - I'm _trying_ to say - …"

Mycroft took his hands from his face, inhaling.

He watched his former self straighten up in his chair, breathing the same breath - calming the same rush of misery and despair.

"Greg, I... believe I know what you're trying to express. And it's fine."

"You do?" Greg whispered, pale as death. He looked on the verge of collapse.

"Yes. I do." Mycroft watched his own features harden with resolve. "And I - should tell you that I, too, have been contemplating the same course of action. I am in agreement with you. There's no need for us to prolong this moment any further."

Greg did not move, staring at him in terror.

Mycroft held his gaze, unafraid. "The time has come for you and I to separate," he said.

Greg did not respond for quite some time. His face did not move; his expression did not change.

"Right," he said at last, his voice thick. "Right… you - …" He swallowed. "How - long've you - ?"

"Some months," Mycroft said, calmly. He reached a perfectly steady hand for wine, drank it slowly, and placed the glass back down. "I'm aware you've been distancing yourself from the relationship lately. In truth, so have I. This decision is not before time, Greg - and if we feel similarly on the matter, then clearly it is the right one to make."

"Right," Greg said, again. He searched Mycroft's face. "I - I didn't realise - you'd been - wanting to - …"

Beneath the idle shrug that Mycroft gave, a hurricane of agony was raging. Not a flicker of it showed upon his face.

"Things have obviously run their course," he said.

Greg swallowed once more. "O-Obviously," he said.

"All things come to an end," Mycroft said. "I'm glad we've been able to acknowledge it at the same time. It means that we can finish this cleanly, with dignity. As adults."

"Right," said Greg. "I - ... f-fine. Good." He swallowed. "I'm - glad too. I'm glad we - h-had the time together we did. It - it was - … I mean, we - ..."

Mycroft shrugged, once more.

"There's no need, Greg," he said. "I am not distressed."

Greg nodded, numb. He looked down at the tablecloth.

And that was it, Mycroft thought.

Three years; one conversation by candlelight. All their hopes, all their memories, all come to nothing.

As all things did.

He turned, empty, to the Ghost who now stood behind Greg - the Ghost now looking down at himself, gazing at his own fallen shoulders in pity.

"You see," Mycroft managed. He lifted his chin, even as he shook. "I knew. I saw it from a mile away, Greg." His pain sharpened into anger. "Thank God."

His former self stood up from the table, produced his wallet from inside his jacket, and proceeded without emotion towards the bar - to pay for the dinner when Greg Lestrade had dumped him.

"Thank God I could walk away with my head high," Mycroft said, his chest heaving. "With my dignity. God knows I have nothing else now. Three _years_ of my life, and you - …" He bit down on it, shuddering. "A restaurant. Of all places. _Christmas,_ Greg. For God's sake, could you not have - … just a few more weeks, for pity's sake - just to - …"

He covered his face, drawing in a breath.

"Take me home," he commanded. His voice broke. He couldn't bear this a moment longer. _"Now._ I don't know what you hoped to achieve by all this. I don't know what you wanted, except to cause me misery again. I hope you've had your fill of my pain."

"Come here," the Ghost said.

Mycroft took his hands away from his face, dragging in another stiff breath. "Excuse me?"

"Come here," the Ghost repeated, quietly. "Come and stand here."

Mycroft barely kept himself from rolling his eyes. "For what _purpose?"_

"Please just _do it,"_ the Ghost whispered, shaking. "Just - _listen,_ for once. Tell yourself maybe you _don't_ know everything, and come _stand_ here, for one bloody moment in your life."

Mycroft bit at his tongue. He balled his fists, hard, and circled the table to stand beside the Ghost.

"There," he snapped. "And what _precisely_ am I now meant to - "

The Ghost nudged his arm - and pointed, in silence, below the table.

Mycroft followed his hand with a scowl.

Greg was still sitting in his chair, pale and quiet. He was holding something in his hand, Mycroft realised - turning it silently between fingers that trembled.

It looked like a small black cube.

As Mycroft realised it was a box - black leather, hinged, and stamped with the crest of a London jeweller - the bottom dropped from his stomach.

His jaw dropped with it.

_No._

It could not be.

It was not possible.

He looked up at the Ghost, his eyes locked open with shock.

Greg looked back at him, calm. Exhausted tears welled up in the deep brown eyes.

"All those extra shifts," he whispered. He searched Mycroft's face. "We're not all millionaires, you know."

Mycroft's heart cracked into shards. "You - you were - …"

"Thinking all the time?" Greg breathed. He swallowed, shaking. "About _us?_ About our memories... about everything we'd _shared?"_

"Greg, I - …" Mycroft could not speak; he couldn't reach the words. "Y-You - were - …"

"Waiting for the right moment," Greg whispered. His face creased in a joyless smile, the tears brimming over in his eyes. "Make it special. Christmas. Restaurant, and candlelight. Thought about it for months. Realised it was okay - I was ready again. You and me, Myke. For good. Didn't scare me. Wanted it."

He bit down into his lip, the tears shining in candlelit tracks down his cheeks.

"Wanted you," he whispered. "Wanted you t'be mine. Always, gorgeous. _Always._ And you - you…"

Mycroft's throat had closed shut. No sound escaped him as he mouthed, horror and misery coursing through his veins.

Another Mycroft returned abruptly to the table, startling the one already stood there.

"If you don't mind," his past self said, as brisk as if they were wrapping up an over-run meeting, "I shall take my leave. I'll inform my brother of our separation, to avoid any unpleasantness on his part. There's certain to be some, but if we can ward it off at the pass - "

"Right," Greg croaked. As he stood from the table, Mycroft saw him push something hurriedly into his pocket. "I'll - get going, too."

"Yes. That's probably best."

Greg hesitated for a second, gazing at Mycroft - lost. Pain and shock burned in his eyes, paralysing him to the spot. He opened his mouth to speak.

He then closed it, and turned, and began to leave.

Panicking, Mycroft grabbed for the man's arm. _"Greg,"_ he gasped.

His fingers swept through Greg's arm as if it were made of smoke. Greg continued to walk away, head bowed, visibly shaking.

Mycroft rounded on his former self, who was now silently returning his debit card to his wallet. His face was set in pale, emotionless resolve.

He wasn't even watching Greg leave.

He was fitting the card back into its slot like it mattered, like it meant everything in the world. _All lives end. All hearts are broken._

"Go after him," Mycroft gasped. He felt his face contort. He raged at himself, howling; agony ripped his voice apart. "For God's sake! Don't be afraid… _GO AFTER HIM!"_

But the fool did not listen.

He folded shut his wallet - fixed the clasp into place, flattening it with care - slipped it away inside his suit jacket.

Mycroft turned, broken, to the Ghost who stood beside him.

"Take me home," he gasped. "Show me no more." His entire body shook. "Why are you torturing me?"

The Ghost gazed at him, quiet.

"These are things that've already happened," he said. "They're set in stone now, gorgeous. Don't blame me."

 _"Take me HOME!"_ Mycroft raged. He'd meant it as an order. It cracked from his mouth as a sobbed plea. "I can't bear it! Take me _home!"_

As the words ripped from his throat, he felt himself break apart under their weight. His back bent beneath them and he drove his hands up through his hair. He wept, shaking, as he sank to the ground. The restaurant and the candlelight whirled itself apart around him in an instant.

As he crumpled to the floor, it seemed to reach up for him - he hit it with a flump. Bed covers, he realised - his pillow - the blanket that had become his only warmth at night.

Mycroft found himself in his own room again, with tears blistering in his eyes.

He wept himself into exhaustion in the dark. He wept until there was nothing left to weep, and until the emptiness started to feel like safety. Calm followed the grief - calm that fell as thick and heavy as a snowdrift - and Mycroft laid within it, drained of every feeling.

He told himself it wouldn't have mattered in the end.

He had misjudged.

Made an error. Formed a conclusion, and perhaps been less than correct.

But Greg would still have tired of him, some day. Grown jaded with him. Realised, in the fullness of time, that he was no more than a broken wreck - still just an unloved little boy on the inside - a heartless fraud, and a waste of time, and a ruin.

It would merely have taken longer.

Who was to say the marriage would even have gone ahead? There was no guarantee.

And if it had happened, it would not necessarily have been happy.

And if it _had_ been happy… one of them would still have left the other, one day.

It was the only thing people could be relied upon to do.

Leave.

Weak with tears, Mycroft sank into a heavy sleep.

He awoke, what felt like many hours later, to the sound of his grandfather clock once again starting to chime the hour. He listened to it, numb, hardly daring to open his eyes.

At last, with its dusty Victorian melody completed, the clock began to strike.

_One._

No more.

The silence resounded through the house, thick as thunder.

It was once more one AM - and Mycroft realised there was someone downstairs in his kitchen.

 


	7. Christmas Present

****Mycroft crept through the dark all the way to the kitchen door before it crossed his mind that, perhaps, he should have called the police.

On any other night, strange nocturnal noises would have prompted an immediate barricading of his bedroom door - not an investigation.

But he was no longer the dogged and reasoned man he had been.

And he had the keenest suspicion that his trials of the night were far from over.

The sounds coming from within the kitchen were the busy sounds of breakfast - rattling kettle, mugs and the fridge, not a rummaging thief or violent intruder. All the same, as he laid his tentative fingertips upon the handle, Mycroft felt them tremble very slightly.

A familiar voice called from inside.

"Myke?"

Mycroft's heart both clenched and eased at once. The sensation made his blood pressure lurch like a bird shot from the air. _God help me,_ he thought. _I shan't live to see the morning._

"Come in, love," Greg called. "D'you want some toast putting on?"

Nervously, Mycroft nudged open the door.

Greg was dressed in his work clothes and coat, throwing together a hurried breakfast. He had car keys in one hand and a half-eaten slice of toast in the other, which he kept tossing aside so he could drain a little more coffee from the mug by the sink. He looked weary. He was trying to tidy up breakfast pots, half-awake.

"Did you sleep alright?" he asked Mycroft, distracted, as he grabbed his wallet from by the microwave and stuffed it into his coat. "Jesus, I'm so late... sorry, darlin'. I'll clean all this up later, I promise."

Mycroft could only think one word.

"Greg?" he said, weak.

The spirit pulled a face.

"Well... sort of." He reached for the mug, then checked his watch, choking on his coffee as he spotted the time. "Christ," he muttered. "Never a minute to - …"

He cast the mug quickly into the sink.

"I'm the Ghost of Christmas Present, gorgeous… major problem being that the present never sticks around for long."

Mycroft said nothing, processing this. _You will be haunted by Three Spirits…_

"What exactly does being the… 'Ghost of Christmas Present' involve?" he asked, watching as the Ghost crammed the last of his toast into his mouth and hurried to the sink to wash his hands.

"Too much," the Ghost grunted, as he grabbed for a teatowel. "Always too much. And I'm already behind... so c'mon. Let's hit the road."

Mycroft's heart fell.

"I don't suppose _you'll_ care about my lack of underpants either," he said.

"Sorry, baby..." It wasn't often Myke had gotten 'baby'; only ever when Greg was very tired, in a rush, or not thinking. "You know I can't before shifts. Duty calls. And, um - honestly, this shift is always hell… m'not really in the mood."

 _"This_ shift - ?" Mycroft said, with care.

"Christmas Day," Greg said. "It's… hard to explain. C'mon. Let's go."

He grabbed his keys, ushered Mycroft from the kitchen and slammed the door behind them.

They left the house into pitch darkness. Only a distant car alarm disturbed the silence, and the wind blew black and cold. It did not feel at all like Christmas Day. Mycroft stumbled a little on the steps in his socks. His heart twinged as Greg looked back, and then returned for him, steadying him with an arm down to the pavement.

A once-familiar car was parked on the roadside. Greg's beloved silver volvo; Mycroft had missed the sight of it waiting outside his house. Greg used to joke she was the only rival Myke would ever have for his love.

As they got inside, shivering, their breath rose in clouds around them. Mycroft found himself overwhelmed by memory - the slightly squeaky seats, the debris on the floor, the winter spice air freshener swinging from the rear view mirror.

The Ghost blew feverishly on his hands to warm them, then reached for the radio.

"Something cheerful," he muttered, searching for pop. _Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree_ scattered through the signal. Greg fixed it, sighing. "Yeah, that'll do… got to build up my Christmas spirit for the troops..."

At a glance from Mycroft, he started up the engine and explained.

"Poor sods are working Christmas Day," he said. "Least they deserve is a DI with a smile on his face."

Mycroft pulled his dressing gown around himself. The cold was perishing - a piercing, searching, biting cold. "You're… working until eight, aren't you?"

"Yeah." Greg huffed slightly, his gaze fogging. "Gonna be easier than last year, at least."

Mycroft's heart ached with guilt.

The man had readied himself for engagement. Months of thought, months of reflection. Finally, that brave decision to share his life again. The divorce from Claire had been vicious. Every possible harsh word had been exchanged by the end.

Greg had put all that aside and moved on. He'd gathered his courage in a restaurant, with the ring ready in his hand - and been dumped.

Two weeks before Christmas.

"Why did you not tell me, Greg?" Mycroft asked. His voice strained as they drove away from his street. "Why didn't you say that you'd intended to propose? I… hadn't realised that was why you'd - …"

Greg snorted, watching the road. "Would _you_ have said?"

Mycroft glanced down at his socked feet. He supposed not. It didn't seem the kind of thing one revealed to a man who'd just ended your relationship with apparently breezy indifference.

"I'm sorry," he managed, faint. "I misread the situation. It makes little difference now, but my... previous experience of love... I - … these things seem fragile to me. Liable to end."

He shivered.

"I thought that if I showed you I was unmoved by your decision to leave, then perhaps I truly would be. In the event, I've - rather regretted it. Bitterly."

He drew in a breath.

"Even more so, now."

Greg took a second to speak. "It's done," he muttered. The passing streetlights deepened the lines about his eyes as they drove. In some respects, they showed him for what he was: a man of nearly fifty, as dedicated to his job as ever but with little comfort to revive him at the end of the day. Mycroft had always hated seeing him like this. He worked too hard - he cared too much. It had been Mycroft's duty to stop him, and he'd failed. "It's over," Greg said. "It's the past, and the past isn't my division. So let's just concentrate on today... alright? Getting this over with."

"A-Alright. Yes, of course." Mycroft knotted his fingers, uneasily. "Whatever you've come to show me, Greg… I... I'm willing to learn. I believe I owe you that. I owe it to what we might have shared."

"Right… well, that's useful." Greg reached for the gear stick, frowning. "Might not be easy for you. You're not used to this stuff."

"This… 'stuff'?"

"Police work."

"Oh." Mycroft was not. He glanced, tentatively, at the tired hero in the seat beside him. "Will you - stay with me, at least?"

For the first time, a tiny smile touched the Ghost's mouth. It was there and gone in a heartbeat.

"Yeah," he murmured. "Yeah, 'course I will. Never let you down before, gorgeous, have I?"

Mycroft blushed. "Not to my knowledge. No."

As the opening bars of _Last Christmas_ struck up on the radio, the Ghost's gaze quietly shuttered. He reached over and changed the channel with a jerk of his wrist.

"Just stick near to me, will you?" he said, searching for something different. "Don't go wandering off, alright? Because I've not got time to come find you. Got a lot to do today. Crime doesn't stop for Christmas."

"I'll stay close," Mycroft said - fearful, but resolved. For whatever reason this was happening, and to whatever end, he would see it through. "I promise, Greg."

"Right," said Greg. His expression closed. "Good."

 

* * *

 

When they reached Scotland Yard, the Ghost wearily lead the way to his office.

Mycroft had been here only a handful of times - only ever on professional calls. Greg had asked him on their second Christmas to come along to the Scotland Yard Christmas Party. Mycroft had said no. He'd feared embarrassing Greg - _Inspector Lestrade's boyfriend._ It had seemed like such an inherently provocative thing to be. He wished now very dearly that he'd gone.

As they passed through the stiff glass doors of Major Crime, they were greeted by a wall of cheers. Mycroft stepped back, unnerved; the Ghost of Christmas Present nudged him forwards.

A second Greg Lestrade - identically dressed, but much brighter in spirits - was standing beside a generous breakfast buffet of party food. As his delighted team added mini sausage rolls, pastries and slices of oven pizza to paper plates, their DI was rallying them to the cause.

" - an utter ball-ache," he said, to laughter, "from start to finish - and I can't promise you it won't be. But you do a bloody good job, guys. You've given up your Christmas to be here. You've given up time with your family, time with your friends, and you're damn heroes to do it. Chief Super won't be here to shake your hand, but I will be. So have some food, have a soft drink, and we'll get our skates on. Only twelve hours to go. Merry Christmas, guys."

Cheers broke out, and calls of _'Merry Christmas!'_ \- and as Mycroft gazed around this crowd of bleary-eyed but smiling people, away from their families on Christmas Day with the sun not even risen, he knew beyond doubt why they did it.

It was for Greg; for the leader who appreciated them.

For a moment, he thought quietly of Anthea.

He suddenly wished he'd had a present for her. A bottle of wine would have cost hardly anything - the day off on Boxing Day. The world wouldn't have ended. She'd worked for him for six years. England would not have fallen.

A phone began to ring somewhere. As Greg encouraged his team to fill up their plates, cheerfully handing things to people who he deemed hadn't taken enough yet, the phone-call was answered and taken. A voice shouted across the division to him.

"Boss? We're off!"

Groans and laughter went up. Greg distributed a last handful of mini spring rolls amongst nearby plates, then swept up his car keys.

"Right," he said. "No rest for the wicked. Who wants to keep me company today? You'll have to put Sally's heels on, or it won't feel the same."

There was no shortage of volunteers.

"Hang on," said Greg with a frown, looking across the crowd. "Where's Fast-Track Alex?"

Fast-Track Alex was sought and found; the crowd parted to reveal him.

He was a bespectacled young man in his early thirties - pleasant-faced, brightly red-headed and as fresh as a March morning. He was neatly attired to professional perfection, even on Christmas Day, and embarrassed to have been called on by his superior halfway through a mouthful of mini quiche.

"You should probably stick with me," said Greg. "You haven't been out on the beat yet, have you? C'mon. Fetch your plate, grab your jacket and we'll go."

As Fast-Track Alex quickly pulled on his coat - fixing each button, tying the belt, pushing his glasses back up his nose - Mycroft watched him with care.

"I'm not sure Sergeant Donovan's stilettos will fit me, inspector," Alex said, with a nervous smile.

Mycroft's heart tightened. He wasn't sure why.

He glanced at the Ghost of Christmas Present, whose expression gave nothing away.

"You'll be fine," the more cheerful Greg said, and reached for the door. "Give it 'til eight, and you'll be sprinting along in them like a gazelle. Ready? Right. Let's head out."

 

* * *

 

It was not an easy professional call to witness.

Their destination was Lambeth - domestic violence, Greg explained to Alex, as they strode across the staff car park together, with Mycroft and the Ghost hurrying to keep pace. Weary neighbours had reported smashing sounds and screaming from a house that was known for it.

"You'll see a lot of this today, t'be honest," Greg said. "Best brace yourself."

"Family tensions?" Alex said.

"Yeah," said his DI. "Things tend to come to a head at Christmas. Golden rules: keep your face in neutral, don't be a hero, and remember that you won't fix a lifetime in five minutes."

As Mycroft reached for the passenger side door of Greg's car, he found his arm swept through and superseded by the hand of Fast-Track Alex - who twisted the handle and stepped through him before Mycroft could blink. Alex slid into the seat beside Greg, and slammed the door.

Flushing with discomfort - and avoiding the gaze of his ghostly minder - Mycroft reluctantly seated himself the back.

As they pulled up outside the property in Lambeth, a vicious shouting argument could already be heard from inside.

Greg's seat-belt was off before the car had pulled to a stop.

"C'mon!" he barked at Alex, who wrenched off his belt and rushed to follow.

The Ghost of Christmas Present shoved open the car door. "C'mon," he grunted to Mycroft.

Mycroft hesitated, holding onto the catch of his seat-belt. "I - I'm not sure if I - "

The Ghost was unimpressed. "What did you _think_ my Christmas shifts are like?" he demanded. "Paperwork and figgy pudding? Get out of the bloody car."

As they stepped inside the house, they breached a threshold wall of marijuana smoke, raging voices and the piercing wails of a baby upstairs. Mycroft's knees were already weak. He grabbed instinctively for the Ghost's arm, but found himself shrugged away. The Ghost led him through a cramped and messy hallway, where sad lengths of tinsel and feebly flashing fairy lights were strung haphazardly from one cluttered pile of possessions to the next. Climbing across a split-open bin-bag, they entered a small and filthy kitchen. The room stank of spoilt food, stale cooking grease and alcohol; it was overwhelming.

Mycroft could hardly bring himself to watch. His every instinct told him to get out of this scene, out of this room - to back away, to cover his face and extract himself from the frenzy of it all. He watched in panic-stricken horror as Greg threw himself straight forwards into the fight - making himself without hesitation the human wall between a couple who could only have been drinking all night, and were now in such a state of anger that their screams no longer resembled human language. The gentleman was bleeding from a significant head wound, but still raging; his partner fought like a wildcat with Greg in her efforts to get hold of the man again, clawing for him, shrieking. Fast-Track Alex joined the fray in desperation, visibly unnerved but unwilling to stay back, doing his best to cajole the young woman into calm.

By the time she was escorted out to the car, tear-stricken with her head held high, Mycroft felt sick to the soul.

"Why - why is only _she_ \- ?" he asked the Ghost, as they stood by the front door. Horror beat in his chest like a second heart. "The young lady's partner, he - he was making threats against her, too. He intended future violence."

"Can only act on what we see at the time," the Ghost muttered, watching. Weariness aged his features. "It's her turn this time… that head-wound she gave him. Looks like a kitchen implement? Fight over dinner? Something like that. Her day today. But it'll be him pulled in next… the only question is when."

"But - but a baby was screaming - there was a child upstairs. A frightened child, Greg. Can't you - "

"We can tell social services," said the Ghost, with a shrug. "They can start the paperwork. They'll send someone round to check, and the parents'll smile and say that everything's fine."

He watched, dully, as his second self attempted to guide the now sobbing young woman into the back of the car. She was protesting to him that it was Christmas - pleading with him. When he didn't comply, she started screaming at him.

Mycroft winced, watching as she flew once more into a rage. It was all she'd ever learnt, he thought - to fight like a demon, or be crushed underfoot. Violence threaded through every aspect of her life. It _was_ her life.

"I - I think I understand now," he said to the Ghost, timid. He shook as he exhaled. "I see what you've come to show me, spirit. Love is - rare. A happy, peaceful home is not to be taken for granted."

The Ghost raised an eyebrow, saying nothing. He pushed his hands into his pockets.

"You think we're done," he said. "Don't you?"

Mycroft paled. "Are we - _not_ done?"

The Ghost smiled.

There wasn't a gram of joy or warmth in it.

"Half past eight," he said. "Twelve hour shift. So that's only eleven and a half hours to go."

As they prepared to drive off from the house, Mycroft glanced in despair into the rear view mirror.

In the driver's seat, now reeking of marijuana and bearing scratch marks across his cheek, Detective Inspector Lestrade rubbed a weary hand at the side of his neck. For a fraction of a second, he and the Ghost wore the same expression - haunted, Mycroft thought; tired, deeper than bone.

Greg then recalled the presence of the man beside him - Fast-Track Alex, pale and numb in the passenger seat.

His face pulled itself back together. He found a quiet smile from somewhere, masked his exhaustion with it, and reached out.

He patted Alex on the arm, just once.

Mycroft's stomach flipped itself into his throat.

"Good work," Greg said.

Alex flushed. He gazed at Greg through his glasses, eyes soft with admiration for a hero. "Thanks. Shall we?"

"Yep," said Greg. He started up the engine, and pulled away from the kerb.

 


	8. All Hearts

By the time that darkness fell, Mycroft had witnessed more of human life than he had in forty years.

With the Ghost at his side, he followed Greg through every last corner of London - through drunkenness, violence and disorder, from one broken home to the next. He watched as Greg strode again and again into arguments and fights, and was screamed at, sworn at, told he was an interfering pig who had no right. He watched Greg called on false pretenses to the homes of the lonely and the old, for whom the sight of a patient police officer was more company than none on Christmas Day. He watched Greg interrupt a family Christmas to tell them that an uncle had taken his life in the night - been found this morning by his estranged wife, as she arrived with their three children.

He watched, helpless, as Greg waded through the misery and the muck of human life - through situations so hopeless that it made Mycroft want to curl up in despair. Each time one crisis ended, another one called through over the radio. The tide was never-ending - and through it all, there was Alex: brave, calm and helpful at Greg's side, laughing at his black humour, glowing as Greg cheered him through one horror and the next.

Mycroft couldn't watch.

He couldn't bear it.

At last, as four o'clock and darkness drew in, Greg said,

"Okay, Fast-Track... before we take another job, you need some bloody food. You've been on your feet all day. You got something back at Scotland Yard?"

"Yes," said Alex, weakly. "I had the foresight to prepare a packed lunch."

"Good. We'll head back there, take half an hour, then kick our way through this final stretch. Alright?"

"Alright." Alex heaved in a breath as the car set off, resting his head back against the seat. His eyes shut behind his glasses. "Thank you for - your support today, inspector. I'll admit it's been a shock."

"If you can survive working response on Christmas Day," Greg said, "you can handle anything. You've seen the worst now. All plain sailing from here."

"That's… good to know."

"And we've made it in one piece so far," Greg said. "You'll be back home with the Mrs before you know it."

Alex flushed slightly. Mycroft gazed with rising dread at the pink that arose in his fresh-faced cheeks, knowing at once what it meant.

Sure enough, a moment later, Alex said,

"I - … gay, actually. It's - not a problem. I know it's not common in the police force..."

"Christ," Greg breathed, and cringed. "Sorry. You'd think I'd know by now not to assume. Me of all people. Forgive me, Alex. Just a clumsy idiot trying to be friendly."

"Oh no, please don't - … really, inspector, it's - … I'm not offended."

"Really?"

"No, I - I'm quite happy being the 'only gay in the division'. Genuinely, please don't be sorry."

Greg's expression twisted with humour and awkwardness. "You're - not, as it happens," he said. Mycroft could feel his every internal organ pounding with panic. "That's the worst part. I'm... half-and-half, I suppose. I was married to Claire for a while, but… well, my last ex was a guy. And somehow I'm still making assumptions about people. Can we delete the last minute, please? Start again?"

Alex's discomfort had dissipated at once, replaced with a shine to his eyes that he couldn't quite hide.

"If you want, inspector," he said. "Though genuinely, I'm not offended. I - suppose you'll know as much as anyone that it's not always obvious."

"You're kind," said Greg. "Way more than I deserve." As he pulled up at traffic lights, he glanced across. "So, Alex. As I was saying... we'll have you back home with the _Mr_ before you know it."

Alex bit down on a laugh, embarrassed. "S-Single, as it happens."

In the back of the car, an unheard voice breathed, "Please. No."

"Home to the telly?" Greg grinned, a little awkward. "I can't win here, can I?"

"Home to the telly," said Alex. "That sounds about right."

"Nice. And I'll get myself booked in for an Equality and Diversity refresher in January."

Alex laughed, delighted.

As they pulled into the staff car park of Scotland Yard, he asked,

"Are you - coming inside?"

"No, I'm gonna make some Christmas phone-calls," said Greg. "I've got a kitkat kicking about the footwell somewhere. Be fine."

"Are you certain, inspector?"

"Yeah. Go eat, have a rest. See you back here in half an hour."

As soon as Alex closed the door, and headed off across the car park, Mycroft turned to the Ghost sitting in silence beside him.

"Do _not_ make me witness what I think you will," he said, shaking. "Please. For the love of everything good in this world... do _not_ make me see that. _Please,_ spirit. I _can't._ I can't bear it."

In the front seat, Greg quietly scrolled through his phone.

The Ghost watched himself for a moment, tired.

"I don't know what's going to happen," he said.

Mycroft's hands curled into fists. "For God's _sake,"_ he bit out. "This - this is _cruel_ \- _pointless -_ anyone with eyes can see what's going to happen! What _possible good_ can come from _making me watch - "_

The Ghost jabbed two finger into his own chest.

"Christmas _Present,"_ he barked, angry. "As in, Christmas _that's happening now._ Right this second, _now._ Ask the next guy if you want someone to play Mystic Meg. That's not my gig. I just put up with the crap as it gets called through. All the crap. All of it. Over, and over, and _over."_

Mycroft withered into silence, breathing hard.

The Ghost glowered back at him - eyes dark, unimpressed.

In the front seat, Greg was talking to his sister up in Yorkshire. He laughed often as he did, grinning through the windshield at an almost empty car park. Clearly audible in the background, the children clamoured to be handed to their Uncle Greg.

"And if you're seriously asking _why_ this is happening," the Ghost muttered, breaking into Mycroft's thoughts, "if you've not figured it out yet, you never will."

Mycroft turned to him, tight-chested.

"Figured it out? These... visitations, you mean." He searched the ghost's face, his heart beating hard. Annoyance sharpened his tongue. "This carnival ride of regret onto which I've been herded."

"That's the one," the Ghost said, humorlessly.

"Enlighten me."

 _"Enlighten_ you?" The Ghost's eyebrows raised. "What d'you think I've been doing all night?"

Mycroft bit his tongue. "I'd _hoped_ it was a lesson of some kind. Based on recent developments, I can't help but suspect it's a punishment."

"Why?" said the Ghost, pushing. "Have you done something wrong?"

Mycroft blanched into silence.

He bit at his cheek. He breathed in against his distress, trying to isolate it - trying to put it into words.

"Too much," he said, stiffly. "Far, far too much."

He curled his fingers into his palms, staring down at them in his lap.

"I... allowed myself to think for three years that I'd broken the wretched pattern of my life… a life where love always leaves. Where happiness is on condition only. Then, like a fool, I destroyed it - everything I did not deserve in the first place - and now I am being tortured with my mistake. As if I had not realised it myself already. As if I were somehow _ignorant_ of the fact."

The Ghost said nothing, looking away across the car park. He shook his head as his eyes trailed the darkening London skyline.

"What?" Mycroft snapped at him.

"S'just… you're not there. Not quite." The Ghost paused. "You will be."

"And what precisely am I missing?"

The Ghost shook his head. "You don't get what ties it all together… everywhere we've been. Everything I've showed you."

"Misery?" Mycroft suggested. "Poverty?"

"I mean for _him,"_ the Ghost said. He nodded to his own second self in the driver's seat. Greg was laid back, gazing into space with a smile the size of the windshield as his nephew babbled down the phone, listing with giddy excitement all the presents Father Christmas had brought. "Why's he sitting there, Myke?" the Ghost said. "It's Christmas Day."

Mycroft's heart ached as he fought to understand.

"Because I - I ended our - "

"So why's he not at _home,_ alone in the dark? Tearing up Christmas cards and drinking scotch? Why's he _there,_ doing all this crap? Why's he not just given up and laid himself down to die?"

Mycroft couldn't speak. He gazed at the Ghost, mouth open, pulse erratic.

The Ghost stared back.

"All lives end," it said. Mycroft's heart tensed with distress. "All hearts are broken. The world's a mess, Mycroft - whether it's Christmas Day or not. _He_ knows it better than anyone. He knows it better than you. So why's he sitting there? Why's he still trying to do some good?"

Mycroft grappled with it. He swallowed, thickly. "I - I do not know..."

The Ghost looked away.

"You will," he said. _"I_ might not've drilled it into you, but…"

He lifted his eyes, watching the man in the driver's seat say a final goodbye to his sister.

"You'll get there," the Ghost said, quietly.

Greg hung up the phone. He gazed down at it for a moment, his face glowing with the brief warmth of family and loving voices.

Sadness settled back across his expression.

He looked suddenly much older - grey, and quiet, a tired soul who'd found himself alone again, sitting in a car park on Christmas Day.

Breathing in, he scrolled for another contact in his phone.

He held it to his ear as it rang, resting back in his seat. It was answered quickly.

"Alright, mate?" Greg said, with a smile. "Merry Christmas… you been spoiled?"

He listened, grinning, then broke into a laugh.

The sound warmed Mycroft's heart like a sudden rush from bellows.

"No way..." Greg murmured. "Engraved and everything? Christ, Sherlock, you're a lucky bastard. Did John like what you got him?"

Mycroft's heart squeezed.

As he listened, Greg sank back a little into his seat, grinning as if Sherlock were right here. He looked like he wasn't alone any more. Mycroft gazed, lost, and realised that a sadness still softened Greg's eyes - quiet, tempered grief.

Not a breath of it reached his voice.

"That's fantastic," Greg said. "I'm glad for you, smug married. You give the rest of us hope, mate. You really do."

He listened, pulling an arm around himself slowly. In function, it propped up the elbow connected to the phone; in form, Mycroft suspected, it was the closest thing to a hug that Greg Lestrade would have on Christmas Day.

"Oh - " Greg said, after a moment. His face quietened. "No, I'm - fine. Honestly, Sherlock. S'nice of you to ask."

He listened again, his smile rather strained.

Mycroft rubbed quietly at the sleeve of his dressing gown. He longed to know what was being said - to know what his little brother sounded like offering comfort. He'd never heard that sound before. He'd never asked Sherlock to comfort him.

He'd never given any hint that such a thing would be wanted.

"Some things just - don't work out, I guess," Greg said into the phone. His shoulders expanded with a silent breath. "But… if I'm honest, mate... I - still don't get it either."

He hesitated - nervous, Mycroft thought, to open a box that was safely sealed; a box both of them had carried all year long, unable to cope with its contents but unable to throw them away. He knew that feeling. He knew how keenly it hurt.

"I dunno, Sherlock." Greg rubbed the side of his neck. "I - guess I thought we were happy."

"We were," Mycroft heard himself say. The words escaped him without thinking. He flushed, his insides coiling as he realised the full, awful force of it. He turned to the silent Ghost beside him. "We _were._ Greg… if I'd _known - "_

The Ghost of Christmas Present gave him a look of wary disbelief. "You'd have - said yes, would you?"

Mycroft looked into his eyes.

His heart thudded with longing. _Engaged,_ he thought. _Lifelong commitment._ His immediate reaction was delirious joy, followed at its heels by an attempt towards fear -  giddy, leaping fear. Was it the right choice? Was a permanent bond a wise decision? Would they still make each other happy twenty years from now?

Until he'd convinced himself that Greg was pulling away, Mycroft had wanted to spend his every minute with the man.

He'd been obsessed with him.

His gorgeous, happy, miracle boyfriend - his Greg. He'd never foreseen an end to those long and wonderful days. It had only ever crossed his mind when his oldest, deepest wounds whispered in his ear that he was losing Greg's love.

He'd then rushed to rip it apart.

He'd seized heartbreak for himself with both hands - so he could feel like he controlled it. He'd destroyed everything, so he didn't have to endure seeing Greg destroy it. He'd left before Greg could leave. It had felt like the only way he could possibly survive that unbearable agony: if he'd _caused_ it. If he'd _chosen_ it.

For a year now, he'd walked the world a broken and miserable wreck, clinging to one false and desperate assertion: _yes, but it was mutual. I too wished it to end._

It wasn't true.

He'd seen the poor man soul-searching, and decided there was only one possible outcome - that all lives would end; that all hearts would be broken.

Mycroft looked down at his hands, swallowing.

This would have been their first engaged Christmas.

Dinner, he thought. The same restaurant. Hands gently joined upon the table cloth. A ring shining in the candlelight, with the promise of another ring to come.

Mycroft reached up, pushing his hands across his eyes.

Soundless tears rose up beneath his fingertips. All night, they'd been close to the surface. Seeing what Greg endured on a daily basis had left him weak with guilt and pity - and now despair, as he realised he couldn't even comfort the man.

Sherlock was now doing that.

"... a bit," Greg mumbles into the phone. Mycroft looked up, watching as Greg sank further into the seat of his car. He curled a little around the phone, closing his eyes. "Yeah. I mean… that's normal though - right? Just… memories. This time of year..."

Sherlock's voice came for some time. Mycroft couldn't make out the words.

Towards the end, they made Greg smile through his grief.

"That'd be really nice," he said, voice tight. "You - sure I won't be intruding?"

A startled dismissal; Greg exhaled his laugh.

"Sorry, I just…" He sighed, rubbing his nose. "You know what Sherlock, I'll just admit it... 'cause it's Christmas and I'm knackered, and I've got four hours left to work yet... I - ran into Myke yesterday. I say 'ran into him'... I was... sort of at his flat."

Sherlock's groan was audible. A question was asked.

"Delivering a card," Greg said, awkwardly. "I wasn't going to. I promise. Then it got to about nine, and I was on my own in my flat, and I just suddenly thought - …"

Something broke within his eyes.

His expression creased.

Alone in his car, Greg covered his face with a hand. He rubbed hard at the bridge of his nose as his grip shook around the phone, trying to stifle his tears.

 _"Bollocks,"_ he breathed. "S-Sorry, Sherlock - I - erm… m'not a hundred percent yet. I still get - …" He breathed in hard. "C'mon, Greg. For Christ's sake, it's been a year..."

Shaking, Mycroft reached out to touch Greg's face - to brush away the tears.

His fingertips passed through Greg - as if he simply wasn't there.

"I thought I'd try and - and maybe we could be friends," Greg mumbled into the phone, undisturbed by a touch he hadn't felt. "I dunno. Just so I could see him now and then. I didn't - … _Jesus,_ I didn't want him just to _vanish._ That's the last thing I ever wanted."

He dragged in a breath, rubbing his eyes.

"So I wrote the miserable bastard a Christmas card," he said. "Took it round… then suddenly his bloody car was there, and..."

Greg lapsed into silence for a while, listening. He drew in a long breath.

"Why am I piling all this on you, Sherlock?" he muttered. "S'Christmas Day. Stop letting me bang on."

The response made him laugh, despite his tears.

"If someone had told me two years ago that you'd end up using the phrase _'what friends are for'_... y-yeah, mate. Yeah, of course I will. Thanks, Sherlock. I'd love to see you both."

He sat up, pulling in a long breath.

"So long as you're sure I'm not intruding on - … oh - Christ, that's what I was telling you, wasn't I? No - no, your brother. Last night. Long story short, he made out like he was giving you both space... honouring your privacy or something."

Greg laughed at the response, exhausted.

"No, I _know._ But what could I say? I mean… how many times do you two have to ask before it's obvious he just doesn't give a toss?"

Mycroft's heart clenched, hard.

Greg listened again, calm now, his eyes closed and his smile back in place. Sherlock spoke at length; the rumble of his voice was almost gentle.

"No," Greg said at length, with a sigh. "No, he's... not a bad person. Just - sad." Greg hesitated, looking away through the windshield. "I think."

Mycroft buried his face in his hands, on the brink of tears yet again. He pushed his fingers up into his hair.

"See you a bit after eight, okay?" Greg said. "D'you want me to bring anything?"

A negative was given - just himself.

"Great. I'd better go, Sherlock… back on shift in a few minutes. Yeah - yeah, you too. Tell John I'm gonna ruin you both at Saboteur."

Greg smiled, eyes shining.

"See you, mate." He paused. "Thanks. For - this year. Dunno if I'd have been alright with you."

His eyes glittered as he listened.

"Well, I... will be." His voice tightened. "Some day."

He hung up the phone, with a gentle press of his thumb.

Greg sat alone within the heavy silence that followed, gazing down at the empty screen.

He loaded up his photographs.

Mycroft watched him scroll - quickly, quietly, flashing back through the recent months where little seemed to have happened. As a year or two had passed, he slowed his scrolling. Finally, he eased to a halt and sunk into the pictures there, their beautiful colours bright in the darkness.

Mycroft gazed at them with him.

Their first Christmas.

Greg had been horrified to find Mycroft didn't usually decorate. He fixed it that very day - Argos Superstore, of all places. The bristly plastic tree looked like an atrocity when Greg first pulled it from the box. They spent an hour setting it up - lights, ornaments, cream ribbons tied with care by Mycroft's more dexterous fingers, happily absorbed together in the lounge with the empty cartons of a Chinese takeaway discarded on the floor around them. When they were finished, they turned out the lights.

They'd looped their arms around each other in the darkness, watching it glitter.

It had suddenly looked beautiful.

Mycroft didn't know at first why tears welled.

Then he realised the last tree he'd helped to decorate had been his grandmother's, forty years ago - her tiny front room in her tiny little home by the river, where hugs were only ever an arm's reach away, and biscuits weren't anything to be ashamed about. As he looked at his new tree with Greg, he remembered all the Christmas stories she'd read him. Stories full of miracles, magic and happy endings. Happy endings like Greg. Mámé had waited to put her tree up every year, so that Mycroft could help her decide which ornaments to use. He had an eye for it, she'd told him fondly - told him every single year - sitting on her tiny couch together as they unwrapped each treasure from its soft tissue bed: tiny crystal swans; gold pine cones; graceful ceramic couples dancing.

Then Mycroft was standing in the dark with Greg, watching the soft sparkle of the lights - and he'd realised he'd have given anything in the world to decorate his grandmother's Christmas tree one last time.

The tears had become impossible to hold.

Greg's arms gathered him up - as if he were as precious as those crystal swans. Greg stroked his hair and held him as he cried.

He didn't ask.

He'd never, ever asked. Just held Mycroft until he was alright, as if he somehow understood - as if he knew, without knowing. He'd brushed the tears from Mycroft's face without a word.

That was their first Christmas.

Greg had kept all the photos all this time.

Mycroft watched him scrolling through them - one perfect shining memory to the next. The pantomime to which they'd taken Greg's niece and nephew. Mycroft had thought it was atrocious from start to end, but Greg's helpless laughter had made the dreadful thing so funny that Mycroft nearly ended up in tears along with him. They'd still been repeating the worst of the jokes years later.

The pile of presents on the end of the bed. Christmas morning. Gorgeously wrapped. Ribbons, bows - almost too beautiful to open. The dinner they'd cooked together, and the mountain of washing up it had produced, with a grinning Greg stood beside it in his damn paper hat. He'd kept it on for six solid hours. Their socked feet up on the coffee table together at the end of the day - an empty bottle of wine beside them, and a fire in the grate, and an old film playing in the background.

Greg closed his photos with a stiff swipe of his thumb.

Tears glittered in his eyes.

Mycroft could barely see through his own. He tried to blink them away, wanting to see Greg - wanting just to gaze at him - to feel like his eyes were where they belonged.

But as his tears fuzzed and cleared, he realised he was somewhere else.

The car and the car park had gone. Mycroft found himself instead in Baker Street - his brother's flat. He was standing to one corner with the Ghost of Christmas Present, facing the sofa.

They were resting there together - _cuddled,_ Mycroft thought, with a desperate flush of his heart - John Watson's head was cushioned on his brother's shoulder, and their arms were quietly around each other. Slow music played from the laptop on the table - Sherlock, recorded on the violin. Candles glittered on every bookshelf; the smell of food drifted  from the kitchen.

As his brother tilted his head, and laid a kiss to the tip of John Watson's nose, Mycroft found himself overwhelmed with regret.

"What's wrong?" the Ghost asked, beside him.

It took Mycroft a moment to speak.

"I never saw them marry," he managed. "I couldn't bear the thought of seeing you. I missed you so desperately. Just the sight of you would have - ..."

His heart heaved.

"And yet… _you_ went. You put your grief aside. Why couldn't I? Why couldn't I have been _happy_ for them? One precious day of their lives."

The Ghost huffed, and slowly folded his arms.

"Why should you be happy?" he asked. He raised an eyebrow at Mycroft. "It's going to end, after all... isn't it? One way or another. What's the point of them being happy?"

Mycroft gazed at his brother and John, so at peace together that the whole world around them seemed warm. "That is…" He swallowed. "I…"

He closed his exhausted eyes.

"Perhaps I've been mistaken in a number of things." The truth of it twisted around his throat. "I... still have much to learn."

As he opened his eyes, they were once again somewhere else.

This was a place to which Mycroft had never been. They were standing in another living room, softly lit for Christmas. A sublimely tasteful tree predominated one corner, elegant in cream and gold; black-and-white photography bedecked the walls. Music was also playing here - slow piano, as soft as the lighting. The cream leather sofa before Mycroft was empty. He looked around, wondering where this was.

Then he saw them by the mantelpiece, swaying softly to the music.

Anthea looked more happy in the arms of her husband as Mycroft had ever seen her. Peaceful, he thought - at rest. The man was gently stroking her hair, brushing her soft brown curls with his fingertips.

"Do you really have to leave me tomorrow?" Mycroft heard him ask. His voice was as tender as a shadow.

Anthea nuzzled into her husband's chest. She laid her cheek against the pattern of his jumper, nodding without a word.

"Can't you - tell him you're poorly, sweetheart? Just one day more."

Anthea's arms tightened slowly around his waist. She shook her head in silence.

Her husband placed a quiet kiss to the crown of her hair. His eyes closed. "Wish he appreciated you more," he whispered. "Wish he knew what you give up. M'so proud of you. I wish he was."

Anthea looked up at him in surprise.

"Mr Holmes is... good to me, David." Her features softened. "He's always been good."

Mycroft turned away.

He laid his head against the nearest wall, closed his eyes and raked his fingers through his hair. There he stayed for some time, until he could bear to breathe again.

When he lifted his head, they were in Greg's car.

They were driving along an unknown road; lights and buildings passed the windows on either side. Mycroft saw none of it. He gazed numbly through the windscreen from his seat in the back, letting emptiness pulse through him in waves.

Beside him, the Ghost of Christmas Present was asleep - too exhausted now to stay awake. His hair was thick with white in the darkness; the lines around his eyes had deepened like the crags of an oak tree. He looked older. He looked weaker, thinner.

The clock on the dashboard read half past eight. It was the only source of light within the car.

As they pulled to a stop outside a concrete block of flats, Alex looked up at Greg from the passenger seat. His eyes shone like stars.

"You didn't need to," he murmured.

"S'fine." Greg gave him a tired flash of a smile. "Couldn't have made you pay for a taxi on Christmas."

"Still, it's - kind. Thank you."

"No problem. Thanks for today, Alex. You did great."

As Alex bit down at his lip, embarrassed, Mycroft let go of the final fragments of his heart. He let them wash away into the tide.

He hadn't deserved them, after all. He had wasted them. Why not let the poor thing die? Why have it anymore, if he'd never use it again?

He gazed at Greg, too broken to cry another tear.

"Be happy," he whispered. His throat heaved shut; the words hurt too much to give them sound. He mouthed them anyway, trembling. "If you cannot be mine. Please be happy."

"So… hey..." Alex said, his voice careful in the quiet. "This is - possibly awkward, but… well, I… suppose Christmas is the time to be brave."

Greg looked up from the radio, surprised.

Alex steadied himself with a breath. Nerves suffused his face.

"Would you - fancy a drink, maybe?" he said "I mean… _now,_ if you like - there's wine upstairs - or… or after Christmas, if you prefer. We could go to a bar, or…"

He hesitated, gripping his hands together quietly.

"I - like you, Greg."

Greg stared at him for a second, his eyes rather wide.

 _"Oh,"_ he said at last. "Right…" Mycroft watched his throat shift as he swallowed. "Well, that's - nice of you to - "

"I've got whiskey too, if you prefer…" Alex rolled his lip between his teeth. "Or there's some amaretto in the back of the cupboard… oh no - is this the part you tell me you're a beer man?"

Greg gave an awkward half-laugh, looking down. "No, I'm - … erm, this is just - _wow._ S'been a while."

Alex smiled, shy. "It's okay. It's - just a drink. For now."

Greg looked up at him, breathing in.

Mycroft shut his eyes.

"No," he heard Greg say.

His eyes flew open, astonished.

Greg's face tightened with apology as he spoke. "No, I - … I'm sorry, Alex. It's not you. And you're sweet to ask, it's just… you know what, it's - complicated."

"Is it - work?" Alex's face had fallen. "I'll only be part of your division for the next month. Then the scheme will move me onto - "

"No, it's… not work." Greg's voice quietened. "It's - some other stuff. Really, I'm flattered though. I mean it."

Alex hesitated, his eyes soft with pain.

"What - is it?" he asked.

Greg took a moment to speak. "Okay... you - deserve the honesty. I won't lie and let you go away thinking there's something wrong with you, because there's not. Really. If I'm honest, you're - you're just the kind of guy I'd - …"

He breathed in, shutting his eyes for a moment.

"I'm... coming out of a break-up. Still hurts. My ex was - … erm - we were close. And it ended kinda suddenly, and I'm just not… ready yet. If that makes sense."

"Oh," Alex said. It was no comfort to him. He breathed out, pale. "Okay, well… I'll - erm… sorry."

"Alex, I'm - sorry too. I mean it. Please don't feel like you have to be - "

Alex opened the car door, bowing his head in embarrassment. His lip shook as he stumbled out.

"Bye," he managed, stiffly. He slammed the door, and hurried away into his block of flats.

Greg laid his forehead quietly against the wheel.

" - weird with me," he finished. He sighed. "Well done, Greg. Brilliantly handled, as always."

He gripped the wheel, calming himself.

"Sherlock," he mumbled. "Sherlock and John. Christmas. Friends."

He reached for the gearstick, jerking it into position.

"Bollocks," he gasped again. "Bollocks, _bollocks…"_

As the car drove off, Mycroft watched it vanish into the distance. It took him a while to realise he'd been left behind. He found himself at last standing on the roadside, quite alone, shivering as a thin and sickly breeze stirred across his skin. He swallowed, pulling his dressing gown to cover what little extra he could.

Glancing around, there was no sign of the Ghost of Christmas Present.

Nor had Mycroft any idea which part of London this was.

"I'm - to walk home now, am I?" he asked the wind. His voice cracked. "Or am I stranded here forever?"

There was no answer.

 _Home,_ Mycroft thought.

If it took him all night, he would get home. He would walk, and he would think about Greg. The morning couldn't be far away.

As he lifted his eyes left and right, trying to decide which way to begin, Mycroft realised with a cold thrill that he was no longer alone.

A solemn figure, whose quiet tread he recognised, was coming like a mist along the road towards him.

 


	9. Yet To Come

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With much gratitude to 221b-fangirl-street for her French translations in this chapter.

****Greg slowly, gravely, silently approached.

As he came near, Mycroft felt a sudden and awful urge to back away. The very air through which the spirit moved seemed to scatter gloom and misery. From throat to the ground, Greg was dressed wholly in black - suit, shirt, court shoes and tie. His silhouette was indistinguishable from the night; it was impossible to separate him from the darkness all around.

No emotion underlaid his face. Only his eyes showed any semblance of human feeling. They were heavy, dark and tired with tears - tears shed over days, not hours - tears that were no longer there, but had left their raw and red shadows sunken into his pale features.

As the Ghost's eyes fixed upon Mycroft, their broken stare flooded him at once with dread.

The Ghost did not speak. As it came to a stop before him, it did not move.

It merely watched him, and waited.

Horror coursed slowly beneath the surface of Mycroft's skin. He fought it, finding the strength to speak.

"Are you the Ghost of… Christmas yet to come?" he asked.

The Ghost did not answer.

Instead, it lifted a single hand - and pointed over his shoulder into the darkness.

Mycroft's lungs constricted around his heart.

"You're about to show me things that haven't happened yet," he said. "But - but they _will_ happen, in time?" He swallowed. "Is that so, spirit?"

Greg inclined his head - once, and without a sound.

It was the only answer Mycroft received.

He'd thought he was getting used to spectral company - but something about this one frightened him so much that he found his hands beginning to shake. Those eyes, he thought - those _awful_ eyes. They pierced him with a vague, uncertain horror, and left him almost too afraid to voice his words.

"Spirit, I… I've had a number of - unsettling encounters tonight," he told it, entreating himself to be brave. "Though I - I think I'm beginning to understand."

He stared into those terrible eyes, begging them to show him some flash of feeling - some thought - anything, _anything_ but that unbearable, unendurable grief.

"I know you're here to do me good," he said, in desperation. "I - I know you're here to change me. I _want_ to change, spirit. I'm ready. I'll accompany you wherever you lead. A-And I'll do so with a thankful heart."

The Ghost gave no reply. It pointed, once more, into the darkness.

Mycroft's heart heaved. "Won't you say something?" he asked.

The Ghost merely stared, and waited.

Mycroft swallowed, resolving himself to his fear. "V-Very well," he said, trying to muster some small scrap of dignity. He drew himself up to his proper height. "Lead on then, spirit."

The Ghost moved away into the darkness without a word. Mycroft followed numbly in the trail of its wreathing shadows, feeling pale to the soul. The darkness gathered around him, carrying him along.

The street fell away as they walked, buildings slipping through time and space as fragile and mutable as houses of cards. In their place rose up oak-panelled walls, polished to a gleam and hung with holly-trimmed portraits of good and noble men. Beneath Mycroft's feet swelled a plush and thick-piled carpet. The warmth of a fire washed over his skin, and with a rush he recognised the surroundings he stepped into.

It was The Diogenes. Mycroft shuddered with relief to find himself safe within the walls of his club. He'd been here only hours ago; it felt like a lifetime. This was a private room, and two men were sitting by the fire - men whom Mycroft vaguely knew, though their names evaded his recollection. They were faces from Whitehall. The sight of colleagues stirred his heart with hope, familiarity.

A clock ticked somewhere in the quiet.

Mycroft glanced with concern at the Ghost who had travelled beside him. Its melancholy form seemed to blacken the very air around it, seeping shadow and silence in waves. How the gentlemen in their armchairs remained oblivious to its awful presence, Mycroft didn't know.

The Ghost's stare did not break from his own. It pointed, mutely, at the men.

As Mycroft glanced across at them, the older of the two snapped a pocket watch shut.

"Do you think he was dead by this point?" he asked - to a bark of astonished laughter from his companion.

"Terrence… what an _atrocious_ thing to come out with, old boy!"

Terrence smirked, reaching aside for his generous glass of port.

"Oh, don't tell me you've not been sitting here thinking about it..." He swirled the glass, amused. "Every Christmas Eve, I can barely put it out of my mind."

"You always were rather _morbid,_ Terrence. Surely one should have better things to contemplate on Christmas Eve."

Terrence huffed. "Perhaps," he said. He sipped at his port. "Though, I do wonder… and, in fact, I wonder it roughly every hour or so… _was he dead now?_ And then an hour later, I find myself wondering again. What about now? How about _now?_ By this point, had it already been some hours? I know you're going to call me ghoulish, Arthur... but by God, I find it wickedly fascinating."

"Well, as you've invited me, old boy, I'm afraid I've no recourse but to call you _ghoulish._ Every hour! Heavens above, Terrence. I don't think anyone ever thought of the man every hour when he was _alive,_ let alone now he's been dead all these years. Ten, is it?"

Terrence chuckled, curling into the depths of his armchair.

"Twelve," he said. "And yes, that's terribly true… I imagine the old devil would be rather flattered, if he knew..." He sipped his port, then graced the edge of the glass with a sigh. "Did you go to the funeral?"

"No," his companion said, with a snort. "No, I had rather better things to do. Did you?"

"As a matter of fact… I _did."_

 _"Did_ you? Terrence, old boy... whatever for? I hadn't realised you and he were close."

They laughed together. Their derisive snorts melded richly with the crackle of the fire.

"I wanted to see how many people attended," Terrence protested, as he smirked from ear-to-ear. "I had a feeling it couldn't be many… _and,_ Arthur, if I'm rather indiscreet, I did stand there wondering how many of my fellow attendees had only come to indulge a similar curiosity. 'Many', I would say, if not 'most'."

"How dreadful. And _was_ it well attended?"

 _"No,"_ Terrence pronounced, enjoying the word enormously. "No, it was not. _And_ it was a rather terrible lunch to follow, if I recall. Very cheap."

"How dreadful," Arthur said again. He gated his fat fingers upon his stomach, stretching in the warmth of the fire. "I imagine everyone was trying not to picture it, were they?"

"The lunch?"

"No, no. Not the _lunch,_ Terrence. I mean what _happened_ to the wretch."

"God alive, Arthur... you have no idea." Terrence swirled his port, eyebrows knitting. "I've never felt a single thought being so palpably repressed by an entire room of people. It was nauseating. Everyone lingering with cups of tea, trying to make conversation with… _that_ looming over us all. It was horrendous."

Arthur loosed another snort. "I imagine."

"And now the dreadful man continues to sully my Christmas Eves," Terrence sighed. "Blighting them with the anniversary of his demise. But perhaps it's no surprise that he continues to be an aggravation, even posthumously... _and,_ with the same inflated sense of self-importance to boot… a trifle like death can hardly have been expected to put a stop to him."

They chuckled together, darkly. Terrence pressed the bell for more port. They returned to their newspapers, lapsed into silence - and that was that.

Mycroft turned, unbreathing, to the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come.

One thought pounded in the empty chasm that his heart had once occupied.

"It's me," he said. "Isn't it? The man they were discussing. I - I am dead."

The Ghost merely stared at him, those reddened eyes too heartbroken to shed another tear.

Mycroft felt himself start to shake.

"What happened?" he demanded. The words didn't seem like his own. They were coming from his mouth and sounding in his ears, but they had no origin in his brain. A white, writhing horror had obliterated all thought and all language. "Why - why did they not know the - hour of my death? Why did nobody know?"

He stared into those eyes - those desperate, empty eyes.

"I was alone." It was the only conclusion. Mycroft swallowed it, choking on it. "How long before I was _found?"_

Nothing - no answer. Just those eyes, locked into his, those eyes that had cried themselves into nothingness.

"How _long,_ spirit?" Mycroft begged, his voice breaking. _"What in God's name happened to me?"_

The Ghost raised a hand - pointing over his shoulder - telling him to leave.

Mycroft shook his head, white-pale with terror but resolved.

"No, spirit," he breathed. _"No._ No, you will tell me. _You will tell me."_

The spirit merely gazed.

"Twelve years," Mycroft gasped. His voice cracked on the words. "T-Twelve years, and I am - _m-mocked_ \- over _port_ \- when is this? _What year is this?"_

Sudden, heart-wrenching panic broke across his skin. It rushed him hot and cold at once.

"Where is my brother?" he said, his fists balling. _"Where_ is Sherlock?" His heart heaved against his ribcage. _"Where is Greg?"_

The Ghost lowered its pointing hand.

After a moment, it tilted its head.

It was the tiniest, most fragmentary motion - so minor that it almost wasn't there. The spirit seemed to survey him for a second with something like contempt - as if wondering whether he truly, _truly_ wished to know.

Nausea prickled in Mycroft's throat. He fought it down, his chest surging as he breathed.

"Show me," he bit out. _"Show me, spirit._ Show me Greg and Sherlock."

The spirit slowly turned its back. Without looking to see if Mycroft followed, it proceeded in its furling coils of darkness through the nearest panelled wall.

The once comforting surroundings of The Diogenes folded around them, span themselves into nothing and fell away into a storm of motion and darkness.

When Mycroft's feet next stepped upon the ground, it was frost-hardened grass he felt beneath them. He found himself emerging into a cemetery, in late evening. Graves filed away across the hillside in rows. They were lit from below by soft white flood-lights; the paths between them were shaded and sleepy. It was a clean place - well-kept - well-tended lawns, and gentle flower-beds, and a willow trees whose tendrils stirred in the frail winter breeze.

The walls of Mycroft's chest seemed to cave.

He turned to gaze at the spirit who'd brought him here.

"Why show me this?" he whispered. Dread tightened itself in bands around his chest. "Why bring me to this place?"

The Ghost raised its hand. It pointed between the graves, to where three figures walked along the path.

As Mycroft recognised them, he almost howled their names.

His brother - older, wrapped up against the cold and wearing glasses - was carrying a wrapped bouquet of snowy pink peonies. John held quietly to his arm.

John; Mycroft's _brother-in-law -_ his _family -_ John, who had never injured him nor been unkind to him in any way. He was guiding Sherlock in gentle quiet along the path.

Behind them, a few paces in their wake, came a man whose hair was shocked with white and silver. His hands were deep in the pockets of his leather jacket; his head was bowed. At his side, he carried a supermarket bag. Its contents were as heavy as his footsteps.

Mycroft found himself walking between the graves towards them.

Numb, he reached out with his hands.

"Sherlock," he whispered. "Sh-Sherlock..."

His hands passed through them. They didn't lift their heads to him; they didn't hear him. They had no notion he was here.

Greg was wearing the scarf Mycroft had given him for their second Christmas.

In silence Mycroft followed them, until the three had reached a grave whose inscription he couldn't bring himself to read.

Sherlock knelt, gently. He laid the bouquet of snowy pink peonies upon the frosty ground. His hands trembled as he arranged them - making them neat.

Sherlock stood; John's arm wrapped around him gently.

In silence, the three men stood for some time.

John Watson-Holmes - ever brave - was the first to speak.

"It doesn't get any easier... does it?" he said.

Sherlock reached a shaking hand beneath his glasses. John gently produced a tissue from his pocket, and gathered it without a word into his husband's hand. He'd had it ready, Mycroft realised. He'd known it would be needed.

Sherlock dabbed his eyes, then merely held the tissue - crumpled it quietly between his fingers.

The peonies shivered in the breeze.

"Still doesn't seem real sometimes," Greg said. His voice contracted strangely around the words. He was trying to be brave, Mycroft thought - brave for Sherlock. Brave for John. "You still find yourself thinking... y'know, any day now... there'll be a call, and it'll all have been a mistake."

He shook his head, breathing in hard.

"His car'll just turn around the corner," he said. "It'll pull up and there he'll be. With his bloody umbrella."

Sherlock snorted, his face creasing. He brought the tissue to his eyes again, shaking, and hid his expression as his husband hugged him tightly around his shoulders.

"D'you think he's cross we buried him with it?" Greg asked, his voice breaking.

John gave him a brave smile, full of pain. "No," he said. "No, I think he'd be glad. 'Case it rains there. And... even if it doesn't, I'm sure he'd have seen the funny side."

"Mycroft?" Sherlock managed. "Funny side?"

It was Greg's turn to snort - face twisting, cracking.

"Jesus," he whispered, emptying his lungs in a rush. "Guys, I - I hope you don't mind me - after all these years, still coming along every Christmas Eve. I really appreciate that you - "

Sherlock reached out, shaking in silence. His arm went around Greg's shoulders without a word. He pulled him close.

For some time the two men stood together and shook, their foreheads tightly pressed. No words were spoken.

John rubbed his husband's back. His eyes shone with quiet, unseen tears.

"I thought it was a wind-up," Greg let out in a rush. "I thought... Jesus, Christmas Day, who's ringing me to tell me...  _that."_

Sherlock's voice came hollow in the quiet.

"They - informed me he'd - fallen. Hospital. Obvious they were concealing a more..."

Mycroft's heart contracted with cold.

_Fallen?_

"I wish they'd let me tell you, mate," Greg whispered. "I wish. I _wish._ I wish you'd not had to hear that from..."

Sherlock was silent for a moment, thinking. His eyes trailed the grave that laid before them.

"It would have changed very little," he decided, in the end. "That news would never have been easy."

John gripped him, pressing a kiss to his shoulder. "Love, I've always thought it. And I'll say it every year. I'll say it forever. I don't think he'll have known a thing about it. A fall from that height, he'll... instant. No pain. It's probably one of the quickest ways to..." He lapsed into silence, gazing at his husband's face. "I mean it, Sherlock. Don't tell yourself he suffered."

Sherlock's face showed nothing.

"If I'd tried," he whispered, struggling with the words. "If I'd tried harder to - know him, to make him realise that he was welcome, that our parents were not right about... perhaps he..."

"Don't fall into 'what if'." John rubbed between his shoulders. "Nothing could've prevented this, Sherlock. This was nothing you could've changed."

Sherlock was unconvinced. He breathed the thoughts away, closing his eyes.

After a moment, he stepped forwards. He laid his fingertips upon the gleaming black granite of the tombstone.

Shaking, Mycroft reached out. He laced his fingers through his brother's. Their forms blurred, melding into one.

Sherlock's whisper was almost inaudible. None but Mycroft heard it.

"You are remembered, brother." His grey eyes shuttered. "You are - missed. For what it's worth."

Mycroft's throat sealed.

He watched his brother's fingers curl back into themselves, quiet. They gently drew away.

Sherlock stepped back, turned, and in silence made his way along the path that they had walked. His coat stirred behind him in the breeze.

Nothing was said for a moment.

"D'you mind if...?" Greg said, swallowing.

John patted his back. "Take your time," he said. "S'Christmas. You say hi. We'll be in the car when you're ready." He hesitated. "Sherlock - usually needs a while. To cry. So don't rush."

Greg smiled, his eyes numb. "I won't."

John patted him once more, then turned and followed Sherlock through the cemetery.

Greg turned his gaze to the black granite grave of the man he'd loved. He took a breath.

As he reached for them, the breeze stirred softly through the peonies. They trembled as he picked them up, moving them out of harm's way. He sat himself upon the frosty ground and pushed his back against the grave, as close as he could. He rested there a moment, closing his eyes.

At last he said,

"It's me, gorgeous. It's Greg."

Blind with tears, Mycroft knelt beside him on the ground. He reached out. His fingertips passed through Greg's hands as if he simply didn't exist.

"You had a good year?" Greg said, pulling his knees to his chest. He wrapped his arms around the faded denim. "Don't think I have much news. All year I think about things to tell you. Then I get here every Christmas, and... suddenly doesn't matter that much. Silly things. Things people've said that I think'd make you smile. Things I see... things that remind me of you."

He looked down at his hands, swallowing.

"My niece is pregnant," he mumbled. "That's... I know you never liked kids much, but... m'gonna be a grand-uncle. Little girl. Spring. That's something to tell you."

He hesitated, thinking.

"Sally's wedding was in August," he said. "She had a really good day..."

He laid his chin upon his knees. Silence fell, and he closed his eyes.

"Can't believe it's been twelve years. I know I say that every year, but... it really doesn't feel like twelve. S'only getting harder to believe. Still kinda feels like it's been twelve minutes since I... since they - rang me."

He breathed in slowly. The pain expanded his chest.

"Baby, you shouldn't've gone like that. You deserved better than that. Just to _fall,_ to..."

He began to shake

"Christ, I told you. That floorboard. I told you every time you tripped on it. They... the team who went in, they - they told me you must have gone s-straight through the banister - those things were so _old,_ I... J-Jesus, Myke."

He covered his face.

"M-Myke. Please. Tell me you didn't suffer. Tell me John's right. Tell me you broke your neck. Tell me you didn't - didn't just lie there and - 'til your cleaner - god, _p_ _lease._ Of all the ways to -  _"_

He scraped his hands into his hair, shaking. He scrunched his fingers tight.

"If I'd been there," he choked out, tears rolling down his face. "If I'd been there, baby - got you - ambulance. I don't know. Caught you. Somehow. Stopped it, somehow." He shook as he cried. "S-Stopped it," he whispered. 

It was a long time before he spoke again. He simply cried - cried like a child, weeping for things that were unfair and unkind. He sobbed, unaware of the person sobbing with him, trying to touch his hair.

At last, when he'd cried himself to peace, Greg murmured,

"I've... never, Myke. Y'know? Nobody else."

He pushed his sleeve across his face, trying to smile.

"Not since. Years go by and... sometimes p-people ask, and... honestly, gorgeous, sometimes I think about it. Sometimes I think about it really hard."

His smile blurred with fresh tears. He tried to wipe them away.

"Every time I just end up thinking I can't. Can't do that to you." His features creased. "S'not your fault you're dead. And I'd want you still to love me, if I was dead... still want you to be mine."

He shivered.

"Not that you were mine," he whispered. "S-Sorry. I... Christ, I always forget that part, don't I? Come and talk to you every year like that part never happened. Like I've got any right to sit here and cry. Sometimes Myke, I... I wonder if... maybe you dying meant you became kinda perfect in my memory. Safe. Meant I could come sit here every Christmas and imagine you telling me anything I want, and you're not around to correct me. Maybe if you _were_ here, you'd tell me to get off your grave and put your peonies back. Tell me to stop coming and crying at you every year. Tell me to leave you the hell alone."

Greg bit his lip, shaking.

"Instead, I... I come and talk like... like you were even mine. Like I never lost you."

He curled into himself, tightly, and broke into sobs once more. His body trembled with them.

"Myke. Myke, I'm -  _lonely._ I don't know why I come here. Every bloody Christmas. Come and cry all over you like it changes a thing, like it matters, like any of it matters."

He covered his face, forcing himself to breathe - long, deep breaths.

For a minute, he was silent, thinking and breathing.

Then calm washed over his face. Relief rose up to ease his pain, borne on some comfort that came from within.

"It _does_ matter," he whispered. "It matters. Of course it does."

He swallowed.

"Matters 'cause I loved you, sweetheart. That's all that matters in the world."

He pushed his hands back over his forehead, then reached for the carrier bag he'd brought. From within he took a bottle of the finest scotch.

He unscrewed the bottle as he spoke.

"You used to say... 'all lives end'," he murmured. "'All hearts are broken'... d'you remember, love?"

He smiled to himself, eyes shining as he poured the scotch into the ground. He watched it sink beneath the stiff white grass.

"Fatalistic bastard," he whispered. "Doesn't matter that it ends. It's life, Mycroft. It's meant to be lived. S'the only thing you were meant to do with your life. Enjoy it. Try to do some good."

His gaze fogged as he screwed the lid back on the empty bottle.

"You said all hearts get broken, darlin'. You said everything comes to an end." His throat muscles worked. "I've heard that when happiness shows up, you should give it a comfortable chair."

He closed his eyes, reaching up to rub away his tears.

"I don't care how many years go by. Don't care how lonely I get. I'll come say hi. Still bring your Christmas scotch." He butted his forehead gently against the black granite grave. "I loved you. That was enough for me. Always enough. Death's got nothing on love. Not a single thing."

He placed his hand over Mycroft's name.

"Just wish you hadn't died to prove it to me." His fingers shook as he whispered. "I knew that already, darlin'. You didn't have to go and die to show me."

For a long time, there were no words.

"I'd better go check on your brother," Greg managed at last. "Still looking after him for you. You're welcome." He eased himself quietly to his feet, and rested both hands atop the smooth black stone. "Don't get up, love... I'll show myself out. Have a good year. Enjoy your peonies and your scotch. I'll... see you again next Christmas."

He paused, brushing his hands one last time across the stone.

His eyes quietened.

Through his tears, he smiled.

"Merry Christmas, gorgeous." His throat worked. "I miss you more each year."

He placed Mycroft's peonies back on his grave, picked up the empty carrier bag, and crumpled it gently into his pocket.

Then he turned, and walked away between the headstones.

Mycroft watched him go.

After what felt like hours, he became aware of the Ghost still standing at his side. He turned to face it, and looked into the deep brown eyes that now gleamed with fresh tears.

"Answer me one question," Mycroft whispered.

The Ghost said nothing, waiting in silence.

"Are these things that _will_ be?" Mycroft asked. "Or things that only _may_ be?"

The Ghost's expression did not change; it simply gazed at him, tears rolling in silence down its face.

"Our actions all have consequences," Mycroft said, even as his blood roiled with fear. "Our choices lead to certain ends, if persevered. But if the choices are changed then - then surely the ends, too, will change. Surely that is true."

The Ghost said not a word. Its tear-filled eyes searched his face, listening to him speak.

"Spirit," Mycroft whispered. He reached for the lapels of Greg's funeral suit - he'd buried Mycroft looking like this. He'd cried all these tears for a man who was not his. Mycroft curled his fingers around his collar and whispered, _"Please..._ please, I beg you. I am not the man I was. I'm not the fool who dismissed his every friend for fear that he would lose them. _Please._ Why show me this if I'm past all hope?"

The spirit began to shake beneath his hands. Its expression crumpled, wracked with grief.

Mycroft held its lapels ever tighter, shaking with it. Brave and frightened tears flowed down his face.

"I won't shut out the lessons you've taught me," he swore. "I won't forget what I've been shown. Please, spirit - _please_ \- please let me carve the writing from that grave."

With the words, Mycroft broke. In desperation he began to sob. He buried his face against the Ghost's chest, panting, clinging to its clothing as he wept.

 _"Please,"_ he begged. "Please… oh, Spirit - _please…"_

He felt the lapels loosening within his grip - the chest beneath them softened. The fabric expanded in his hands. Material flowed to surround him, as warm and kind in this horrible place as any comfort he'd ever felt. It gathered him away within its folds as he wept. He felt himself growing smaller, and younger, and his senses were overwhelmed with the wash of a sudden scent - a scent he hadn't even realised he'd forgotten.

Biscuits. Fresh spring flowers. The neatness of her tiny home.

Her arms drew closely around him. She held him as if he were cherished.

Only two people had ever held him like this. Only two people in the world.

As she petted the puppyish red curls of his hair, she whispered,

"Why do you cry, _mon nounours?_ Did you have a bad dream?"

He wept to her, in fragmented French, that he was afraid.

"Do not be afraid… _je suis là maintenant…_ you have no reason to be afraid."

Breathing frightened gasps of air, Mycroft managed to tell her that he didn't want her to be gone.

 _"Mon nounours…"_ she whispered, as if she'd never heard something so untrue. "What makes you think that I am gone? You believe that I could leave you, my angel? No, _mon nounours…_ I am here."

She squeezed him in her arms.

"I live on in you, sweet boy… more close than you could ever dream. _Je n'ai jamais été aussi proche de toi qu'à cet instant._ I live in what I gave to you."

He shook in gentle silence with his tears, filled with calm by her voice. She had always known what to do. She had never been afraid.

"Now you must give away what I gave to you, _mon nounours._ You must give it away with both of your hands. The more you give, the more you will have. And then I will be close to you... and I will walk beside you, always."

Her gentle fingers brushed his cheeks; she dried his eyes with the wool of her cardigan.

"Cry no more, little angel. _Tout va bien se passer._ Let us take you back to bed... the morning will be here soon, and you have much to do."

Mycroft told her, softly, that he loved her.

"I love you too, my darling. You are more loved than you will ever know. _Je te verrai demain matin…_ goodnight."

Mycroft closed his eyes. He nestled into her arms, and for the first time in many years, he knew that things would be okay. It would be better than it had ever been. It would all change from this moment - he would not be lonely again. He would not be afraid.

As he held onto his grandmother tighter, Mycroft found that she felt suddenly soft - like fabric and blankets.

"Mámé, I…" he whispered - then, startled, raised his head.

He was lying in bed. The room around him was full of daylight, and his pillow was wet with tears.

It was morning.

It was Christmas Day.

 


	10. Cognac and Candles

****_I am alive._

Mycroft stared around his bedroom, mouth open. He could hardly believe his eyes.

_Oh, sweet god. I am alive._

He scrabbled for his mobile phone where it laid on the bedside. He unlocked it with a flash of his passcode and a thudding heart, every nerve in his body aflame. The time and date blinked brightly onto the screen.

It was December 25th, and it was half past ten in the morning - and Mycroft Holmes was alive.

Kicking back the covers, he struggled out of bed.

He found himself standing bolt upright beside his bed in the morning light, clutching at the soft burgundy velvet of his dressing gown. He stared down at his white socks, panting. He had travelled miles across London in them. He'd wept at his own grave in them. He'd walked all through the night in them.

It was all real.

And here he was, with his life laid out ahead of him: every glorious, shining day of it.

He was half-dressed before he even knew what he was doing. As he realised he was trying to button a waistcoat inside-out, Mycroft let out a cry of delighted laughter - _dear God! What am I doing? What on earth am I doing?_

He was still laughing as he undid the waistcoat. _So much to change. So much to begin._ Mycroft's heart leapt with it, jumping on the spot like a happy puppy as he twirled the waistcoat over his head and flipped it the right way out. It was the red satin back that he hardly ever wore - he'd always feared that it was showy. It was not. It was magnificent. He would wear it today - _Christmas Day -_ and he'd wear it everyday that he ever wanted to.

It could all be changed, he thought.

All of it - all those long years of fretful mistakes. It would all begin today.

All he needed was a plan.

He re-buttoned the waistcoat, his fingers trembling almost too much to achieve it. He felt as light as a feather, as happy as an angel, and as giddy as if he'd been drinking since six. It was Christmas Day - of _all_ days, _Christmas Day_ \- and there was so much to be done.

 _Sherlock._ Sherlock and John. He must see them. They'd invited him - Christmas lunch - _dear_ _God, Christmas lunch!_ He would take wine - wine from the cellar - the _good_ wine, the wine that had only the most generous coating of dust on it - he would take that. He wondered how many bottles he could carry. Five, at least. Would that be enough? Mycroft longed to be generous. He suddenly wished it more than anything.

There was only one thing in this world he wanted more.

_Oh, God..._

_Greg._

For a second Mycroft wondered if he should call a taxi now. Right this moment, now. Call a taxi, he thought, and pay the man a thousand pounds to drive him straight to Scotland Yard - straight to Greg.

But then he remembered that Greg would be out there - out in the city, he thought, gazing at his bedroom window - out in London somewhere, doing good - a modern hero. His shift would not finish until 8pm.

_I will be there._

Mycroft's heart echoed with the sheer, pounding joy of it. He would be there, he thought - there for the very moment that Greg finished work.

And it would all be put right.

But there were many hours before then, and many things to do.

Now dressed, with his waistcoat the right way out and sporting his most colourful pair of socks, Mycroft took an enormous and careful step over the warped floorboard outside his bedroom door. He headed quickly down stairs.

 _Call a carpenter,_ he thought. _First thing. First thing tomorrow._

On a second thought, he hurried back up the stairs - avoiding the banister as if it were on fire - and dragged a vast potted palm into the doorway as a reminder. _Perhaps call two carpenters. To be certain._

Mycroft frisked - carefully - back down the stairs, and tugged his work laptop out from its case. Humming a perky Christmas song that he believed was in the charts at the moment, he set the device up happily on the kitchen table.

He made himself a coffee as it loaded. On a whim, he added two sugars. He deserved two sugars. And after all, what did it matter if he had two sugars? It was Christmas Day, and God knew it wasn't going to kill him. He chuckled to himself as he thought it, stirring the coffee happily in his most frivolous mug. He would buy new ones as soon as he could - no more of these geometric white ones that matched the work tops. He wanted colourful ones that matched his heart - mugs with patterns - mugs like Greg had, no two matching and in every colour under the sun - mugs that friends held. Mugs you handed to a husband after his long shift of work.

As he drank his Christmas Day coffee, Mycroft googled 'hampers'.

On a far better thought, he googled _'luxury_ hampers' - and congratulated himself for having had such a marvellous idea.

The amount of choice was bewildering - but he soon found one he liked the look of. The price tag didn't matter - not a bit, Mycroft thought - not a button - and there were a great many overdue Christmas presents included in it.

A wedding present, too.

 _Dear Anthea and David,_ he wrote in the 'Special Message' box. _With my compliments to you both for the festive season; with my deepest congratulations upon your first married Christmas; and with my fondest gratitude for all of your hard work throughout the year. Please do take a few days off to enjoy this together at home, and I shall see you again on 1st January. Yours affectionately - Mycroft Holmes._

Just before he hit 'Order', Mycroft paused.

He went back, tapping carefully at the arrow key - and amended the comment to say:

_… I shall see you on 2nd January. Yours affectionately, Mycroft Holmes._

Pleased, Mycroft clicked 'Order'.

It would be delivered express, first thing tomorrow morning. It would probably take two men to deliver it.

Mycroft only wished he could have seen Anthea's face as she opened the door… as she read the card. What a wonderful moment it would be. No doubt she wouldn't believe it - and he didn't blame her! - but she'd have one every Christmas now. Every birthday. It was the least that he could do.

She would have holidays too, he thought - five weeks off a year, without arguing. They would manage without her. There was more to life. And if the country couldn't cope for a few days without her at his side, then frankly it didn't deserve to cope.

As his heart pattered happily to itself, Mycroft ordered a second hamper for Sherlock and John. _Hampers for everyone,_ he thought - amusing himself as he chose one he hoped they would like. _I have become the Christmas hamper fairy… dear God, I am unstoppable._ They could have theirs express delivery, too.

Finally, and with a smile he had waited four decades to allow himself, Mycroft loaded the website of a major cancer charity.

He navigated to their donation page, registered as an anonymous supporter, and to a figure that ended with five zeroes, he added the message:

_In memory of Marie-Hélène Alice Holmes - loving grandmother. Never forgotten._

He hit Submit.

It was the first, he thought - the first of many.

For now, there was now another Holmes he needed to remember. Another Holmes who had received far less than he'd offered, and was about to witness a much-needed change.

In fact, Mycroft thought with a sudden grin at his laptop - there were _two_ of them to thank. Holmes _-Watsons,_ in fact. A matching pair.

He hurried from the kitchen in his socks, slid happily along the hallway, and headed down to the wine cellar.

 

* * *

 

The taxi companies of London were clearly enjoying a roaring trade. Of course they were! It was Christmas Day, and Mycroft didn't begrudge them their high volume of business for a moment. Instead, it would give him a marvellous opportunity to do something he hadn't done in years.

He was going to _walk_ somewhere.

He put on his warmest coat - the pale grey one that Greg used to say made him look handsome - and with a wine carrier proudly in his hand, Mycroft left and locked his front door.

It was a magnificent day.

No fog, no mist; clear, bright, jovial and stirring cold. _Piping for the blood to dance to,_ Mycroft thought. The morning was full of golden sunlight and sweet, fresh air. It made him smile just to be out in it, gazing fondly at the sky above as he strode down his garden path.

He could hear church bells sounding somewhere - Christmas morning.

And tonight…

Dear God, _tonight._ He could hardly bare to think about it _._ It was too much - too marvellous, too wonderful, too impossible.

 _Sherlock first,_ Mycroft thought. Baker Street, and his brother, and John.

As he left his gate, he found a neighbour out on the street - scraping frost from the windshield of his car. _Going somewhere,_ Mycroft thought in delight. _Travelling to loved ones._ He'd seen the man's face around and about for many years now, but they'd never made eye contact - never spoken.

The man glanced up as Mycroft strode brightly down the street. Spotting Mycroft Holmes, he instinctively averted his eyes - and then returned them, with an elastic snap of amazement, to the broad grin that he was being given.

"Good morning!" Mycroft said. He'd not wished anyone good morning in _years._ Dear lord, it felt good. On an magnificent whim, he added, "Merry Christmas to you!"

The man gaped for a second, as if sure he were dreaming - then broke into a startled smile. His entire face opened.

"Merry Christmas!" he replied, astounded. "You're - number sixty-four, aren't you?"

"I am! 'Mycroft Holmes'. Number sixty, I presume?"

They laughed as they shook hands.

"Bob," the man said, beaming. "Bob Granger. Well... Merry Christmas, Mr. Holmes. All the best to you!"

"And you too, Mr Granger - and to your family. Good morning!"

As Mycroft strode away along the street, he grinned from ear-to-ear.

He strolled through London, happy and brisk in the morning air, and found himself encountering more and more people who couldn't wait to smile at him. Something about him must be irresistibly pleasing today. People who passed on the street grinned almost as soon as he turned his eyes on them, and wished him a 'Merry Christmas' - which he returned, gladly and wholeheartedly - and before long, Mycroft realised that every single person he passed seemed to be happy just to see him.

It was intoxicating.

He wanted to see it more - not just today, he thought. He wanted to see it everyday. He wanted people to be glad when he entered a room, rather than relieved when he left. It would take time; it would take patience.

But he would learn.

As he walked, he realised that everything this morning brought him pleasure. He loved the winter sunlight, and he loved the morning's cold, and he loved the snatches of Christmas music on the air. He'd never realised that a simple walk could give him so much happiness. He loved the easy, happy stretch of his legs, and he loved the air that filled his lungs with every breath.

It was only as he reached Baker Street itself, and he remembered he was not expected, that a few nerves made their first tingle known in his heart. He made his way up to the fabled door, his grip tightening on the wine carrier.

This was not something he knew how to do.

 _I will start today,_ he thought. _Here begins the lesson._

Amassing his courage Mycroft dashed up the steps, knocked on the door, and waited.

"Good morning, Mrs Hudson," he said, as she opened it, and flashed her one of his brand new smiles. Her jaw dropped in an instant. "A very merry Christmas to you. Are my brother and his husband at home?"

They were, she said, goggling in astonishment.

"Just upstairs, are they?" Mycroft asked, as he stepped inside. On a whim, he reached into the wine carrier and selected a bottle. "Do have a lovely Christmas, Mrs Hudson," he said - and placed it in her bewildered hands. "You look marvellous today. That shade of plum suits you enormously."

And he kissed her on the cheek, and darted up the stairs.

As he reached the landing, and caught sight of that ever open doorway, Mycroft's nerves once more flared inside his chest. _It will all be different,_ he told himself. He would not let things go unsaid; he would not let the past call the tune of the future.

As he stepped into the homely lounge, gripping the wine carrier ever harder, he found the place warmly lit and decorated for Christmas. He and Sherlock had the same Argos Christmas tree, he realised - he recognised the feet. Christmas carols sounded cheerfully from the kitchen, and there came the sounds of dinner being prepared. The smell of roasting turkey filled the room in waves.

As he spotted a familiar figure, sitting in his armchair by the fireplace, Mycroft's heart slowly tightened.

He swallowed his pride - every last drop of it - and said, tentatively,

"John?"

His brother-in-law jumped. He turned around in his chair.

As he saw who was standing in his door, John's eyes became the size of satsumas.

"Mycroft," he said, his mouth opening.

Mycroft's heart tugged in desperation at the sight.

"It's... me, John," he said - perhaps unnecessarily, he feared - but it _needed_ to be said. It _must_ be said. "Your brother-in-law. I've... come to Christmas dinner."

He hesitated, gazing into John's astonished expression.

"I-If you'll have me," he added, feeling his stomach knot.

A moment later, John's senses returned.

He slowly got to his feet.

"Have you?" He came across the lounge. "Mycroft... of _course_ we'll have you."

As John's arms slung around his neck, Mycroft shut his eyes.

He had to bend his knees a little to hug the man - one-armed and tentative, holding John Watson-Holmes more carefully than he'd ever held anything in his life.

The seconds lengthened.

John didn't seem to be letting him go. Mycroft hoped that this was normal.

As he opened his eyes, he found his brother standing in the kitchen doorway in oven gloves. Sherlock was staring at the scene before him as if he'd encountered a pair of hugging ghosts.

Mycroft hesitated, stiffening slightly. John let him go. With a smile, he glanced around.

"Look who's here," he said, raising his eyebrows at his oven-gloved husband.

Sherlock said nothing, still staring.

Mycroft swallowed. He coaxed himself to calm. He held his brother's baffled gaze. "H-Hello, Sherlock. I... Merry Christmas. To you both."

"What are you doing here?" Sherlock asked - too startled to phrase it any other way. Mycroft didn't blame him.

"I - hoped I could take up your kind offer, little brother. To come to Christmas lunch." Mycroft hesitated, indicating the wine carrier. "I have brought... and I am afraid your gift will be late, but it is to be delivered express tomorrow. I do hope you both like chutney."

"Jesus," John said. He broke into laughter.

Sherlock wasn't entirely convinced. "Is this some ploy?" he asked.

Mycroft couldn't fight a smile. "No," he said. "No, I've... merely done some thinking. Long overdue thinking. And I'm sorry to have kept you at arm's length all these years. Both of you."

He felt a weight in his heart finally loosen, a shadow finally relinquishing its grip.

"I'm sorry to have repelled your efforts to include me," he said, gazing between them, "repeatedly and without good reason. I have behaved atrociously. My only excuse was fear. A pathetic one. But I... I understand that the best apology by far is changed behaviour. And so I am here for dinner. If that suits you."

Sherlock's eyes flickered in silence to John.

John simply smiled, folded his arms across his chest. He lifted his eyebrows.

Sherlock processed this, thinking.

He then quietly removed his oven gloves.

As his little brother's arms went around his neck, Mycroft found his eyes falling shut once more.

Striding out onto the landing, John Watson-Holmes called down the stairs.

"Mrs Hudson?" he shouted. "Have you got any cognac in? There's been a miracle."

 

* * *

 

It was the most magnificent day.

Mycroft helped as much as he could in the preparation of lunch. With no culinary experience whatsoever, this proved quite a challenge - but after a few glasses of cognac, it all became rather funny. Through his own over-enthusiasm with an electric whisk, he ended up with gravy down his shirt. He didn't mind in the least. They laughed about it uproariously as the table was laid, then sat down together to eat - more food than he'd permitted himself to enjoy in a year, and they ate it laughing and sharing with John some of the more ludicrous incidents of their childhood. Before long, Mycroft found himself sitting in a ridiculous paper hat as he and John took on Sherlock over _Trivial Pursuits,_ passing a bottle of Baileys around the coffee table. Mycroft barely kept tracking of who was winning or losing. He simply enjoyed it.

The afternoon happily rolled around. John insisted on watching the Queen's Speech; Sherlock insisted on providing the sardonic commentary. At three, leftovers from lunch were brought out, and groaning Mycroft protested - then managed an extra plate or two. The black forest yule log was nothing short of sublime. He determined to get to the bakery as soon as they opened after Christmas, and procure one. _'Tis the season,_ he thought - and happiness should not be postponed.

It should be shown to a comfortable chair.

Late into the afternoon, Sherlock's phone began to ring - and with a quick check of his watch, Mycroft realised.

Sure enough, as Sherlock checked the screen, a flicker passed over his expression.

"Is it Greg?" Mycroft asked, wishing with all his heart to dispel the awkwardness. "I imagine he's part way through his shift now, is he?"

Sherlock hesitated, watching him with care. "You know that he's working."

"He and I - spoke," Mycroft said, heart expanding. "Last night. He very kindly hand-delivered a Christmas card to me."

Sherlock's eyes widened. "Spoke...  _amiably?"_ he checked.

"Yes. Not for long, but... very amiably. For heaven's sake, Sherlock, do answer the poor man. It's Christmas."

"Yes. I... should perhaps - " Sherlock stood from the sofa with the phone, still startled, and headed out onto the landing. Mycroft heard him answer it as he ascended the stairs. "Hello, Greg. Merry Christmas."

In Sherlock's absence, John casually sat forwards on the sofa. He refilled Mycroft's glass from the bottle.

"So... you two are speaking again, are you?" he said.

Mycroft's heart thumped. "We are."

"I didn't realise. Greg hadn't mentioned."

"It's a recent development," Mycroft admitted. He looked down into the generous glass of Baileys he'd been poured, squeezing it slightly. "John, I'd... rather appreciate your advice. You have more experience in these matters than I do."

John watched him gently, patiently, lifting his own glass to his mouth. "Shoot."

Mycroft took a breath. After a long year's silence, he finally confided.

"I made a mistake. A grievous one. I allowed a lot of paranoia, and a lot of insecurity, to cloud my thoughts in the latter half of last year. I allowed them to guide me towards an unforgivable decision, a decision which I've regretted bitterly since the very moment that I made it. I let fear guide my actions. I should not have done. Now I... find myself rather longing to make amends."

"Mycroft..." John knew immediately, Mycroft thought. It could only be a good sign. "Are you - are you saying you regret ending things with Greg?"

"Yes," Mycroft said; his heart strained as he voiced it. "Yes, I... very much."

"Okay. Wow." John downed half his glass. "Mycroft, I... probably shouldn't tell you this, but... Greg - I mean, he's round here a lot these days... and he talks to Sherlock a lot. About all sorts. You should speak to Greg. You really, _really_ should speak to him."

Mycroft's pulse quickened.

"Does he...?"

John glanced at the door. There was no sign of Sherlock returning.

"I can't tell you what I've been told," he said. "Greg told Sherlock in confidence, then Sherlock told _me_ in confidence, but just... speak to Greg, will you? Please?"

Mycroft's hand tightened around his glass. "I will," he said. "I promise."

"You'll have to - erm - apologise for some things. Things you said."

"Nobody knows it more keenly than I," Mycroft said, shaking. "I will apologise every day of my life, if he lets me."

"God. That's good," said John. "Just tell him like you told me."

"I was planning to go to Scotland Yard tonight. To meet him, after his shift."

John's face filled with wonder and relief. "Right," he said, amazed. "I mean... well, there's no time like the present, is there? You should, Mycroft. He's finishing at eight."

"He is," Mycroft said. "I intend to be there."

Sherlock returned after ten minutes, the phone in his hand. Slight discomfort settled across his expression.

"How is he?" Mycroft asked, his chest tight.

Sherlock glanced at John, seeking reassurance. "Inspector Lestrade is having a difficult day at work," he said, discreetly. "I suggested he should come here afterwards, rather than go back to his flat. He's... coming after eight PM. If you wanted to be elsewhere by that point, brother mine... I don't mean to throw you out."

Mycroft resisted the urge to bite at his lip. It was all happening, he thought - all as he'd seen.

"In fact, Sherlock, I might remain," Mycroft said, and watching his brother's face with care. "To speak to Greg. I'd intended to go to Scotland Yard to meet him at the end of his shift, but meeting him here at Baker Street might provide a more... congenial atmosphere for discussion."

One of Sherlock's eyebrows lifted.

"Discussion?" he said. "Discussion of what?"

John nudged Mycroft's glass with his own. "Tell him," he said. "What you told me."

Mycroft braced himself. He looked into his brother's eyes.

 

* * *

 

Sherlock and John helped to set the scene.

As it turned eight PM, Mycroft was provided with a fresh glass of Dutch courage to quell the nerves that darkness had brought in. Greg would be on his way soon. He'd texted Sherlock saying he was just going to give a colleague a lift home. Sherlock was kind enough to text back on request, asking him to tell his colleague to take a taxi and come straight round here instead.

Just before half past eight, the door-knocker sounded downstairs. Mycroft drained his glass of wine in one go, unsurprised to find that his hands were shaking.

"Right," said John, nervous. He refilled Mycroft's glass. "We'll go hide upstairs. Just take whatever time you need, alright? We'll put a film on. Text Sherlock when the coast is clear. And however it goes, just remember he might need time, and that's fine - and just - _good luck."_

Mycroft could barely speak. "Thank you, John," he said. He looked into his brother-in-law's eyes. "I... truly appreciate all of your - "

"It's fine," said John, with a smile. He placed the bottle close at hand. "Remember to say you're sorry."

"Y-You have no idea," Mycroft breathed.

John grabbed his husband's arm. "C'mon, trouble. Let's go cross our fingers."

As he heard Mrs Hudson answer the door, Mycroft stood from his armchair and took a long, deep drink. He'd never felt every part of his body shiver at once. _Dear god, what if I have it all wrong again? What if he has despised me all year? What if it was all a fantasy? Some ludicrous dream? God help me..._

It was too late to think now. He could hardly jump out of the window and run.

He could only hope.

The steady tread came up the stairs - the soft, heavy thumps of a man who'd worked all day, who now longed for nothing more than a glass in his hand, a paper hat on his head, and someone to show him that they cared.

Mycroft took a final gulp of wine, placed his empty glass upon the mantelpiece, and turned just as Greg came through the door.

A hundred candles lit Greg's first sight of the scene.

All the lights were out; the curtains were drawn. The room was gathered up in gentle quiet, and Mycroft stood alone amongst it all - removed of his jacket, removed of his tie, warmed by candlelight as he waited beside the fire.

Greg's expression opened wide.

"Myke," he managed. He faltered for a second, as if unsure whether he were dreaming. "I - I didn't realise you were - "

Mycroft approached him in silence.

In silence, he got down on his knees.

In silence, he reached for Greg's hands.

They were given without hesitation - and as Greg stared down at him, open-mouthed, Mycroft realised he'd never seen a more wonderful sight. It was the sight of a second chance. It was more beautiful somehow than even the first, gilded by the realisation of what he'd nearly lost - what he'd almost given up forever.

He gripped Greg's hands and murmured in the quiet.

"I... am a fool, Greg."

Greg's face flooded with emotion. He didn't dare believe it yet, Mycroft thought. He didn't dare to hope.

Mycroft steaded himself with a breath.

"A frightened, undeserving fool. I let an unhappy past poison a perfectly happy present... and an even happier future. I convinced myself you were planning to leave me. Because I'm a fool, it seemed somehow less painful to leave before I was left. If I'd asked you, even once, this could all have been avoided. All this pain that I caused. Instead I trusted my fear more than I trusted the man who loved me. I was... categorically, inexcusably and completely wrong."

He gazed into Greg's eyes, gently rubbing his palms.

"I've regretted it everyday," he whispered. "All of it. I've behaved unforgivably towards you. Your love was offered to me without condition and I pushed it away. I have no right to kneel before you, Greg. I have no right to beg for your forgiveness. I have no right in the world."

He hesitated, his throat squeezing around the words.

He gripped Greg's hands and found the strength.

"But it is Christmas," he said, "and if you give me the opportunity, I will change. I will make amends. I will spend the next year on my knees here if you wish. I will stand on every street corner in London with a placard around my neck proclaiming myself an idiot. I will do whatever it takes, Greg. I promise. We will talk. I will make things right. I will never take another moment of your time for granted..."

Tears rose in his eyes; he let them come.

"Please," he said, at last. His voice cracked. "Let me love you for all of your days, Greg. Please. I am deeply, truly sorry."

Greg's eyes glittered in the candlelight. He swallowed, gripping Mycroft's hands. For some time, he didn't move and didn't speak - simply gazed down at Mycroft, trying to decide if this were real.

At last he lowered himself to his knees.

He knelt with Mycroft on the wooden floorboards and reached his arms around him.

"Idiot," he gasped. He drove his fingers through Mycroft's hair, pulling him close as tears welled up in his eyes. "Bloody _idiot_ _."_

Their lips met.

The last rock of Mycroft's soul broke apart. It rushed him, not with warmth, but with something clear and cold and _pure,_ and as they kissed he felt the whole world resound with thunder around them. A sob escaped him - he couldn't hold it - and Greg's arms dragged about him, pulling him closer, tighter than they'd ever held him. They kissed, shaking, gasping in desperation as their hands gripped tight in each other's hair. Joy rang through Mycroft's soul as loud as any bell. He felt it ripple out through every moment he'd ever lived, and every moment yet to come - all of it transformed, all of it rendered perfect and right by _this_ moment - this kiss.

This perfect, precious kiss.

It was far from their first.

But it would not be their last. 

Even as their lips came apart, Greg heaved him closer. Tight arms locked around him, as tight as if they'd never let him go. They hugged, sobbing softly to each other for some time. At last the sobs shaped themselves into words once more.

"I missed you," Greg whimpered. He screwed his eyes shut, shaking around Mycroft in despair. "I missed you so much. How - how could you think - think I'd ever _leave_ \- Christ - I was more in love with you than ever. _More than ever,_  Myke.Y-You - you don't understand what I - "

Mycroft buried his face into the shoulder of Greg's coat, breathing its scent so deeply into his body that it reached every corner, every shadow, filling them all with light.

"Move in with me," he begged. As he heard the words leave his mouth, panic spiked across his heart. "I... that is, if... i-if you wished - or perhaps in time, if you're not yet - "

"Marry me," Greg gasped.

Mycroft's heart imploded.

"Marry me," Greg pleaded, hugging him so tightly his ribs threatened to buckle. "Marry me. _Marry me."_

Mycroft's mouth answered for him. "I will," he gasped. "Oh! _God!_ Oh god, Greg. I _will!"_

 _"Oh - "_ Greg swayed, crushing Mycroft even harder in his arms. "Christ  _-_ I didn't even mean to blurt that out - are you - are you serious?"

"I am serious," Mycroft breathed. "God help me. I'm serious. Yes, Greg. I can't live without you. I'm nothing without you. Please. Please let me make it right."

"Jesus. I-I will, Myke. I'll let you. We'll work it out. Oh god - god, we - "

"What has happened?" called a concerned voice from the stairs. "Are you reconciled or are you in physical conflict? The view is obscured from here."

Mycroft choked with laughter, grinning into Greg's shoulder. He didn't know when he'd started to shake. Greg stroked his hair, beaming, kissed Mycroft's cheek and called,

"We're engaged, mate. I'm gonna be your brother-in-law."

There was a startled pause. "I  _believe_ that counts as a success," Sherlock remarked to John, amazed.

As Mycroft shook with laughter in his fiancé's arms, and Greg's fingers threaded tighter through his hair, John's footsteps raced out onto the landing once more.

"Mrs Hudson!" he shouted. "We need another bottle of that cognac!"

 


	11. Bells

 

_Thank you to my wonderful friend[lmirandas](lmirandas.tumblr.com), who commissioned [camillo1978 ](camillo1978.tumblr.com)to draw the following illustration of the previous chapter... _

_Thank you so much, Liz and Cam. You are both incredible - I'm so grateful. I love it to pieces._

 

__

 

_And now onto the happy ending...!_

 

* * *

 

**One Christmas Later**

 

Bells rang out across a crisp, clear winter's morning.

In a whirl of snowflake confetti, beaming faces and good wishes, with Greg's hand clasped tightly in his own, Mycroft made his way down the steps towards the waiting limousine. He was trembling so hard he could barely walk. His smile shone in every corner of his soul, and Greg's laughter behind him rang as joyfully as the bells. Confetti showered down. At the kerb, Mrs Hudson - in utter floods of tears - hurried forwards to kiss them both, leaving identical lip-shaped splotches of plum upon their foreheads. Mycroft got the door for Greg, shaking. Greg grinned, gave one last wave to everyone, and to rousing cheers they both got into the car.

The doors closed, and the limousine set off.

Greg sought his hands at once, grinning ear-to-ear. He was trembling just as much as Mycroft. Their fingers knotted and they pulled together on the back seat, butting their foreheads - nuzzling - gripping each other's hands in happy desperation.

"I can't believe it," Greg whispered. His beautiful eyes closed. He kissed Mycroft, kissed him again, then after a third kiss, breathed, "I can't believe we did it..."

He brushed his hands through Mycroft's short red beard, bristling it lovingly. It had taken a year to grow. His eyes danced, gazing at Mycroft as if he were perfect.

"How d'you feel?" he asked.

In response, Mycroft surrounded his new husband in his arms.

He held Greg tightly, trembling with a happiness more profound than anything he'd ever known. He closed his eyes. He stroked his fingers through Greg's hair.

"I love you," he whispered. "I love you so very much..."

That was the reason, he thought - the reason for it all - for life, for purpose, for everything: to love with an open heart and both hands, and to fill each passing day with all the love it could contain. Joy should not be postponed. Love should not be measured. They should be shown without hesitation to the finest seats in the house, given every possible courtesy, and made more comfortable than they could possibly ever be.

As tears came, he let them come.

Greg kissed each one away, beaming more proudly than ever. "I love you too, gorgeous…" His eyes gleamed. "'Husband, mine'."

_Dear God, thank you... thank you, thank you..._

Greg tugged a handkerchief from his pocket. As the limo coasted on its way through sun-lit and frosty country lanes, Greg tidied Mycroft's tears gently from his face - smiling as he did, his eyes soft with love.

"S'good to see you cry," he said. He grinned, realising it was strange. "I - … I don't mean I want you to be sad, it's just… this year… you've opened up so much. I didn't think we could ever be closer than we were."

His dark eyes sparkled.

"But we _are,"_ he said. "A hundred times more. You've been so happy, Myke. You've been so happy to share. I just… I can't tell you what it means."

Mycroft swallowed, gazing into his face. _Gregory Holmes-Lestrade._ Their new passports were ready with the luggage at the hotel.

"I lost you," he whispered. "I - couldn't bear it, Greg. I couldn't bear to lose you again. Once, I - I thought that keeping you at arm's length would make me safe, but… now I realise it made me vulnerable. More than I could imagine. You are my strength. You are my shelter. I love you more everyday."

Greg's eyes began to shine. He stroked Mycroft's cheek; his fingers shook.

"Sweetheart," he whispered. Mycroft's heart swelled. "Sweetheart, we won't lose each other again… never ever. No matter what's to come."

"I adore you," Mycroft whimpered. It rang like bells in his soul. "I cherish you."

Greg's arms wrapped tightly around him. "I know, sweetheart... I love you, too."

After ten minutes, they calmed enough to open the champagne that awaited them in the fridge. It was their first drink together as husbands - the best vintage that Mycroft had been able to source.

Right now, as they took an hour to be together in the sunlit country lanes, their guests would be heading back to the hotel. There would be photographs this afternoon - and then this evening, their first dinner as married men. Sherlock had been asked to make a speech. While fondly preparing to dread it, Mycroft was in fact overjoyed to hear it. He had a feeling it was going to be the highlight of the weekend. Greg had been smuggled an advance copy by John, just in case. He'd nobly kept its contents from his fiance - but assured Mycroft, with a grin, that it was going to be a speech to remember.

The two brothers had spent a great deal of time together this year. Their quiet affection had grown and grown. Today, Sherlock had been quietly handed several tissues during the ceremony.

As they cuddled in the limousine, drinking champagne together in the first hour of their marriage, Mycroft wondered if Greg would believe him - that three ghosts had come, and saved his life.

It brought a smile to his face as he realised that, _yes -_ Greg probably would. He'd have listened, in delight, and believed every word.

He reached for Greg's left hand with his own, gently pressing together their wedding rings.

Peace softened Greg's face. He kissed Mycroft's temple, closing his eyes.

"I'll check the caterers know to leave the seat for your grandma," he said, tenderly.

Mycroft smiled, squeezing his hand. "Thank you…"

"S'okay, love. I want her there, too. Did you see the Christmas card Dr. Quince sent us?"

"Mm?"

"Just saying how well you were doing… how much happiness she hoped for you next year. It was really nice." Greg smiled, kissing his forehead again. "She's right. You're doing great. I know it's not been easy dragging it all up, but…"

The therapy had been Greg's gentle suggestion, made upon hearing the first few memories of Mycroft's childhood. Mycroft had agreed wholeheartedly. It had proven an excellent decision. Dr. Quince's guidance had been indispensable, and Mycroft was greatly strengthened by their sessions. He would never forget her.

On Christmas Eve, she'd be receiving a hamper the size of her front room.

Mycroft nestled into his husband's embrace. "Everything is easy," he said, "now that I have your love again."

Greg smiled against his forehead, drawing a happy sigh.

"M'so proud of you, sweetheart. So glad that you came back."

Mycroft wove their fingers together.

"Thank you for giving me another chance, darling." He closed his eyes, as contentment settled through his soul. "You - make my life worth living, Greg. You are my every joy."

The next morning, Mycroft and Gregory Holmes-Lestrade set off for two weeks in the Seychelles.

It was the very first Christmas of the rest of their lives.

 

**The End**

 

 


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